Actually, while you're learning, you should hang yourself a few times. It sounds like you were the kid (like me) who just wouldn't believe that "hot" meant "Don't touch" until you had to go to the emergency room.

I sometimes find it helpful to restrict the options a little.

Sure. Do what comes natural. But, leave your mind open for new paradigms. When I first came to Perl, I was very disturbed by scalars. But, over time, I learned to appreciate the power of dwimmery. ("Do What I Mean"-ery) I also learned I could trust the Perl developers. But, I've found that every "hot" kid has to learn that trust for themselves.

Another comment - Perl is not the be-all-end-all of programming languages. (It's close, but not quite.) And, frankly, it wasn't intended to be (though Perl6 might be really, really close!). There are applications for which Perl is absolutely horrible, like embedded or time-critical apps. I just wanted to say that because you're sounding like you have Perl up on a pedestal.

Remember - many of the most-used Perl modules have their guts written in XS and/or Inline::C. That's not cause Perl is bad ... just XS or Inline::C might be better for the specific purpose.

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We are the carpenters a.nd bricklayers of the Information Age.

Don't go borrowing trouble. For programmers, this means Worry only about what you need to implement.