Also be sure to get Perl Cookbook by Christiansen and Torkington (published by O'Reilly). It's invaluable for getting un-stalled.

It's well-named as it gives brief how-tos with good explanations on a large number of common (and maybe less than common) tasks.

I've been programming in perl since '98 and I still refer to it.

--Bob Niederman, http://bob-n.com