I understood your question in the CB as directed at a total beginner who should see progress ASAP.

That's why I recommended ActivesState (AS), that is AS Perl + AS Komodo.

BUT this is a mixed bag, because I don't like using them in production.

AS Komodo has a flat learning curve, people can visually set breakpoints in the code and run the debugger with a click. It automatically runs perl -c in the background and shows compilation problems by underlining them. (called "flymake" in emacs'ish)

And there are opensource versions out now.

BUT I don't like it being slow compared to Emacs, and I'm worried about it's dependency on Mozilla's XUL

AS Perl comes with an installation GUI called 'ppm', many modules are pre-compiled on their servers and you just install them by choosing from a list and updating. BUT not all modules are available, firewall might block their servers, and if you want to maintain a slightly outdated Perl installation you need to pay for licensing.

I prefer being able to use cpanm (m for minus) anytime.

My colleagues are hooked on these products and I'm continuously struggling to explain to them that "reality" is more complex than their spoiled Perl interface shows.

They excel simply because dumbed down features are easier to make fool-proof. But with a growing project/team you can't dumb down reality anymore.

It's AS business model! (which is fine if you know about the consequences)

OTOH this interface could hardly be easier for total beginners.

YMMV