hello and welcome scheaz99

First i have to say that Perl is my only programming language and also that i had no programming nor scientific background before starting.
So i can tell that after more than 14 years i'm very happy with Perl a tool that open as many doors you want: I dunno if other monks with a vaste programming background, can tell of another language used for so many different things. On my experience i can say i used Perl with success to: administration and automation of windows systems (and some Linux too for my sanity..), heavy work on text and data (the original goal of the language), full power regular expressions, graphical programming with Tk, fast and secure interaction with databases via DBI, web client emulation via LWP, web programming via CGI (many years ago.. will discuss this topic later), big template support with Template Toolkit, full Unicode support, friendly community, biiiig module repository (on CPAN you' ll find that other peoples had your same problems and had resolved in (usually) a smart way so half or all the work is already done..) and dont forget the fun to lurk at perlmonks..

As personal note i can add: you'll love Perl for the freedom given to you to do what you wont in the way you wont, for the errors it reports (very punctual and appropriate comments not 'ton of noise lines with no sense') and for the possibility to have the work done in few baunch of lines.

So, if you choice learning Perl as big investment (come on jump on it!) here you'll find my personl advice about your steps, assuming you wont to go in the field of web serverside programming.

• Be sure to understand how Internet works, at large, servers and client roles, the importance of DNS and how, roughly, how a browser request things to a server and compose the page.


• As already said you have to know about HTML and Css.


• finally some Perl stuff: a usefull book to have is always Perl Cookbook. It somehow aged but you get a big picture of what Perl can do for you. As you understand things compare with the content of Modern Perl to get an idiomatic usage of the language and to avoid pitfall.


• Do not waste time with CGI: my be it is worth for some introduction and rudimentary example, but the future is another:


• PSGI and Plack are the keyword of Perl rebirth in web developping field. The first is a specification and the second is 'Perl Superglue for Web frameworks and Web Servers (PSGI toolkit)'


• You can then choose a web framework to build easely your web apps: Mojolicious, Dancer2 are valid choice as i heard, but there are many other. Now i use Dancer2 but i'm still practicing with new web stuff. The future seems promising!

So tell us what you decided and i hope we'll see here at perlmonks.

HtH
L*