Very insightful. I think if there were one thing most monks could successfully convey to all new users, it would be that concept. Even if you can't understand the warnings or errors all the time, the information provided is invaluable when seeking the assistance of those more learned than you, as I have found out. The purpose of these tools appears to me as threefold.

The first I just described: giving others with more experience in the trenches a starting point for where to look to begin helping

Secondly, if you don't understand the error, at the very least you will reevaluate all that you've written (or at least start with a section of suspected problem code) to try to rectify the problem.

Lastly (and this is in direct conflict with one of the three axioms of programming ;-) ), if you have patience and steadily progress while working with strict and warnings on, you'll begin to understand what the errors mean, why they pop up, how you can get around them doing a similar task in the future, etc.

My two cents is this, nothing said in this thread is new information. It's invaluable, but certainly not original. To new monks: there is a wealth of arcane knowledge of programming, computer science theory, and of course Perl to be gained from the Tutorials, use it. Many have worked hard to enlighten others to the True Path, take advantage of their insight, it is vast.