So what I come here to ask, oh learnéd monks, is if I am completely nuts. Are paper and ink books an irreplaceable resource in the journey to enlightenment that is Perl?
Absolutely not. The only requirement for a person to learn anything is that they're willing to make a few million mistakes. You could learn Perl with just perl, and you could eventually know it well. You could learn Perl just by using CPAN, and you could eventually know it well. It's just less likely, because there's a much steeper learning curve there.

The difference between paper and electronic documents is irrelevant, essentially just a question of which you prefer. Those who truly hate paper will purchase the Bookshelf, sell their physical copy of the Nutshell that came with it, and trot along on their merry way. Those who truly hate reading on a screen can sit and print the entirety of the man pages.

The real thing about the Camel is that it was canonical for the old guard, it became canonical for the new guard, and that it continues to be both an excellent reference material as well as an entertaining read. Not an easy thing, which you know from those other printed reference materials.

I wouldn't worry about it, if I were you. If it really bothers you, buy the Bookshelf, and read the book in your preferred environment.

(And send me your copy of the Nutshell if you do...! I have a friend who learns from reference materials and needs a copy... ;) )

-----------------------
You are what you think.

In reply to Re: (OT) I prefer to do my learning with: dead trees or flying electrons? by chaoticset
in thread (OT) I prefer to do my learning with: dead trees or flying electrons? by revdiablo

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.