in reply to The best way to start learning Perl?
For me, it is difficult to find an answer, because I don't know what you know about computers and programming in common.
In my eyes, the O-Reilly-Book Learning Perl is rather good, but if you are an experianced Unix-Administrator and C-Programmer, you could perhaps start over with Programming Perl immediately.
Maybe a look at Robert's Perl Tutorial might help you anyway. You can find it at: http://www.netcat.co.uk/rob/perl/win32perltut.html
It covers the basics in a good way.
Best regards,
perl -e "print a|r,p|d=>b|p=>chr 3**2 .7=>t and t"
In Section
Seekers of Perl Wisdom