I'm pretty sure that a lot (really a lot) of people roll into Perl via the Web and CGI area. I'm again linking to Idiotic Perl by davorg, which describes the many problems that arise from that fact.

I, too, got into Perl after HTML and JS and wanted to add "dynamic stuff" and learn something cool. I bought a really bad book and wrote really bad Perl, but I had the luck to meet the "right people" and find the "right resources" (like PerlMonks and Oreilly Books).

I do not only assume, i know that there are many, many people getting involved with Perl connected to learning HTML. This has at least one funny reason: SelfHTML, the most famous HTML Tutorial in Germany has a chapter called "Perl/CGI" and all the guys that are pointed to SelfHTML, for it is a really good HTML Tutorial and Ressource, at least notice that chapter and directly connect "Perl" with "CGI" and one day they have a look at it. And although the SelfHTML people have improved the "Perl/CGI" chapter a lot with version 8.0 (added -w and use strict and use CGI; plus added explanation that CGI is not Perl), they still have that dangerous headline "Perl/CGI" and the code is still rather dull.

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