By all means, the manual pages rank first. And this includes any Perl problem. Second is any documentation coming with the product, be them files or dead trees. Third would be Usenet, mailinglists, search-engines and books; it'll depend on the problem which ones to try. And ranked somewhere in between is interaction with real people, be it in real life, a MUD or on IRC. As a last resort, I'd actually formulate a question and post it on usenet, a mailinglist or a webboard (a webboard would always be last). But that seldomly happens.

Abigail