To program in *any* language for 12 years means (unless you are doing very trivial stuff) you are already familiar with the concept and benefits (nay, essentials) of modularity and code reuse. Apparently, you have gotten by all this time with only using "require." Consequently, in addition to the other splendid suggestions in this thread, you may also want to try a Super Search with the following characteristics:

where any text contains all of "use", "require"
and title contains "require"
[download]

which will give you a nice overview of some issues, after you've had a shot at the tutorials.