δρᾶμα

There are three genres of drama: tragedy, comedy, and the satyr play. While dramatic brings a mean of a negative event, the drama is just a neutral word ( vox media ), with the meaning of action so your title can be read as: the simple fact to be a newcomer

So we can argue that each of us can choice which kind of drama preferes to play.

My nickname states it clearly: I will learn forever. Or to quote some theatre author of my motherland: exams never end

Learning and using Perl, for me, is a neverending game and I think you started with the right foot, appreciating the pleasure of learning without the hurry to arrive somewhere.

The same might happens when you are reading a book you like a lot: you are in between of two passions: the need to read it and the fear of ending it. Pleasure, like learning, is not a state but a driving tension.

Escathologically at the end of the learning path there is the uber boring situation of you knowing everything. I cant imagine worst situation.

Burning steps in the hurry to arrive ruins the trip. The pleasure is in the journey not in the, even if it exists, arrive.

But perl is good because it is suddenly fun and let you to get the job done quickly, if it is a quick job what you are looking for. Even if the following verses talk about the GNU, we can quote the famous conteporary poet, speaking of Perl (:

     This antelope will never eat secrets nor cookies
     but science, freedom, wisdom with no throttles
     and it will be good for hackers and also rookies
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I agree with the wise eyepopslikeamosquito about the ten years needed to decently learn something: if I look back at my posts of my first ten years i found more shame than proud. Things started to get a bit better just recently, even if I'm still an hobbist.

About books and tutorials: you are rigth but in programming we have the opportunities to practice while reading, so as long you read something you try it and find an unxepected path to explore, put the book apart, have fun, return to the book. My preffered duo consists in a oldish book, still valid but old, that is able to give you a great panorama of possibilities and your feet wet: The Perl Cookbook and the newer, somehow advance reading, Modern Perl.

About the community: here I'm completely with you. Perlmonks is my only online community (recently I adventured also in #perl irc channel when wise monks are bored of my noisy questions ;) and always was and probably will be. More the people behind a nickname becomes real, more you can profit from their contribution. This is valid for people currently contributing but also for people who left perlmonks for a reason or another. “Be tolerant with others and strict with yourself ” because as every free community it will happen a harsh comment, a misunderstanding or just a nice people in a wrong day.

I have bookmarked your meditation in the learning and teaching Perl of my bibliotheca where you can find othere interesting readings.

Have a nice trip!

L*

PS antoher concept I missed to expose: consider slow food vs fast food.