Ahhhhh, the Black Book.

That's how I started my Perl journery. As a graphic designer, 5 years ago I expressed to an IT friend that I wanted to learn CGI, not knowing what in the heck I was talking about. He handed me the Black Book and told me I needed to learn Perl. So, I sat down at the computer one Saturday afternoon and started writing my first program.

I did okay for a couple of years, cranking out what I now know to be really bad--but working--code. Then I stumbled into the the Monastery. And boy, did I ever get a wake up call! Strict, placeholders, CPAN, OO, etc.

Now I have a book shelf with about 8 O'Reilly books and a few XP as a monk. So, while it's not a great book, it got me started and was an okay reference for the first couple of years.