IMHO, and in addition to the previous related post, I would like to add that moving from no programming experience and windows (I assume) to perl programming that was somewhat designed around UNIX is very difficult.

But, of course, I do not recommend to try to learn and other language first, as most of many other languages are seemingly low-level and nasty for newbies and/or might not have much application for you at this stage.

I would recommend that if you have the money, try several different books and find one that works best for you (learning perl, learning perl on Win32 systems, the elements of perl programming, etc.)

Once you have specific questions, you have a whole slew of resources all around you that are helpfull, prompt, and, most importantly, free. For specific questions, people here are extremely helpful- also try USENET (comp.lang.perl.misc), USENET archives (www.deja.com), IRC, and other web-developer sites (devshed.com, webmonkey.com).

Whatever you do though, the best (and most easiest) way to learn is to experiment, experiment, and experiment. After you get the basics down, come up with (small) projects that you might find usefull and work yourself through them- you'll learn tons.