That kind of turns the question into a chicken-and-egg problem, doesn't it?

I think it's a chicken and egg problem to begin with...

And I'm not sure how a beginner would get around that. I certainly didn't...

Maybe it's necessary to spend some time with "the wrong language" in order to learn why it's not the one for you. In my case, it didn't take much Pascal for me to realize I didn't want to continue with it. It was too formal for my tastes. I like Perl's informality.

To learn "pure" programming, Perl itself may not be the best choice...

I think you're right. If you want to learn "pure" programming, Perl does way too much for you, behind the scenes. For that sort of thing, maybe the Assember to C to C++ path makes more sense. But I'm getting over my head, here - I don't have deep experience with any of those three, so I could be off base...

As usual, the answer to this question depends on the answer to the question, "What's your goal?" There are any number of paths, but they don't all lead to the same place.
That's is a good thing.

In reply to Re: Re(2): programming language by mrbbking
in thread programming language by Anonymous Monk

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.