Perl can be as easy or difficult a language as you make it. Personally I think Perl is just as good a learning language as C++ or Java or any of the other languages that many colleges and schools teach. It is sort of funny that most colleges don't teach Perl that much, but in my experience having worked in the lab as a sysadmin that Perl held the entire place together. Probably teachers just don't consider Perl quite as sexy as other languages.

I picked up Perl in a weekend, and my background at the time was c/pascal/shell/assembly. I can certainly say that I hadn't seen anything quite like it, but it isn't like any of the rules that govern code don't apply to Perl. There is not anything mysterious there... just think of Perl as being more expressive than anything else. You can say a lot more in one line of Perl than you can in one line of C. This isn't such a big deal because you can say a lot more in one line of C than you can in one line of assembly. You're just one step up the programming food chain in Perl if you want to look at it that way.

You should also take what princepawn, merlyn or anyone else (including me) says with at least a grain of salt. Sometimes I think princepawn's questions are a little too bizarre.. he almost *must* know what he is talking about. Merlyn has been programming Perl for so long that it is part of him and I don't know if you can always get the 'layperson' information you need from him.

Don't fret though, you're in good company and if you really do want to learn Perl this is as good a place as any. Just pick up a good Perl programming book and when you get stumped ask your questions because I'm sure you will get an answer.

Hope you stick with it!!!