The benefit of experience is actually in CPAN. Always look there first before coding anything yourself. Get the Perl Cookbook (ISBN 0-596-00313-7) to get _productive_ right away with Perl, it's going to be your best spent $50 if you are going to work with Perl, and many cool ideas not only on the use of Perl but on many modules for specific stuff.

Then get the what I call the trilogy: Learning Perl, Intermediate Perl, and Advanced Perl.

And then, of course, the Camel Book. But that's just to say you have it and have read it.