I love perldoc and I teach it prominently when I teach Perl, but I also make sure the students have a good book to read. A book will never beat the perldoc for being there when I'm actually coding or being useful as a reference. I would hate to have to program without a local perldoc and search.cpan.org, but it would have taken me a lot longer to make effective use of them if weren't for a few good books. Perldocs and books each has their own place, but given a choice between a nice ORA book and a print-out of any perldoc, the ORA book wins hands down for long distance journeys and short trips to the bathroom. In those ways and a multitude of others, the dead tree is still far better. Given that many people are more comfortable learning that way and aren't likely to ever find the screen a more comforting source of consuming large volumes of new knowledge, your "nothing better" is a much more personal statement than a universal one.