Altho I do agree manuals can be REALLY handy, I must stress one of the 3 virtues of a Perl programmer... Yes, I do mean the lazyness.

To many, Perl is the next best thing since sliced bread. Admit it or not but alot of people want to learn Perl and want to learn it as fast as possible. You'd be lying if you yourself were not peeking ahead in Perl books you were reading (like I did). My point being, it's all normal... but only those willing to learn alot, will eventually teach others.

There is no certificate stating you are a qualified Perl Programmer (altho I do have 3 of those around here somewhere, next to my HTML Programmer certificate). People can claim to be a Perl programmer rather fast (and unfortunatly they do).

This is a wonderfull Perl community and many have asked dumb/silly questions, many have asked questions that have been asked dozens of times before, many have ignored the manuals and asked what they wanted to know. It's nothing to be embarassed about. Answering those questions politly might just learn you something more yourself. How many times do you look up things in books and manpages, things you didn't really know alot about, things that bothered others? In some way others are motivating you to learn while they learn.

Just my 2 cents...

Greetz
Beatnik
... Quidquid perl dictum sit, altum viditur.