Well, to start with, PHP is very special purpose; that alone means it isn't the best language for learning programming. That said, any language is better than no language. I learned in BASIC, yet somehow I have managed to move on to real programming. ;)

Perl, OTOH, is very general. You can do pretty much everything with Perl. There are people who claim Perl isn't suited for writing device drivers, but I am finding it perfectly suited for doing bit-level communication with an RS-232 Bill Acceptor interface on an internet kiosk. Perl also handles CGI, databases, graphics manipulation, system administration, data analysis, GUI interfaces, and pretty much whatever else you can think of.

Perhaps the best reason to learn using Perl, is that Perl uses natural language principles.

Another reason, is that Perl has available the largest archive of free extentions/tools of all programming languages.

Another great thing about Perl is the large community of Perl users. This is an incredibly valuable resource; there is no need to take your first steps alone in the darkness.

For even more reasons, see the Perl page of St. Larry Wall.

Paris Sinclair    |    4a75737420416e6f74686572
pariss@efn.org    |    205065726c204861636b6572
I wear my Geek Code on my finger.