The first time someone pointed me to a CPAN module (or maybe the second time, when I had the guts to take the plunge) it was teaching me to fish. ...or maybe Juerd is right, it was dangling that lure in front of me.

Until the first time I downloaded and installed a module I assumed it would be over my head, especially as a beginner. Being pointed to CPAN once or twice motivated me to dig in and figure out what steps to take to install a module. And once I figured that out, I found myself able to go fishing anytime I was hungry.

I'm sure I would have gone fishing on my own sooner or later. But seeing people linking to modules on CPAN and recommending them as though there were no barrier whatsoever to entry to the use of said modules, I was tempted to try for myself, and succeeded.

You can give the same tidbit of information many different classes of people. One will cut-n-paste it, another will ignore it altogether, and someone else will open a book or two to see why the tidbit works. It's always my hope that any advice I give is received by the latter, though I'm sure there are plenty of times that it is received by the first two cases. No matter, I learn something every time I respond, and occasionally someone else does as well.