:) I only made the comment because it seemed that you were thoughtful enough to actually care to learn the whys and not just the hows. Glad to see my humor/advice wasn't wasted. Honestly, digging into the perldocs, though intimidating at first (certanly was for me), will really open your eyes to the Perl way. The perldocs are an important part of separating the script kiddies from the determined seekers of wisdom.

One of the best things I ever did toward learning what little I already know was to load the docs into my PDA in HTML format so that I could use it as a digital reference book. Somehow that works better for me than sitting at the notebook reading them. I refer to them often; at least as often as the Camel book.

References are also intimidating at first. I had enough background in C (with pointers) to catch the general concepts quickly, but I'm still all thumbs with things like creating objects. But hopefully a little more fiddling and reading, and I'll gain some better perspective in that area as well.

Keep up the learning process. Though I can't speak for the Monastery, I can speak for myself in saying I always welcome questions that are accompanied by an actual desire to understand the subject, and that make me think. To that end, keep them coming. :)