The main problem with telling him to become a monk is then you can't share your negative experiences here anymore. ;-)

Rest of this node removed for political reasons -ed

No access to such books? Then that's the biggest obstacle right there. I don't know about other monks, but it would have taken me ten times as long to learn Perl if I hadn't had access to some key books.

the lowliest monk

My friend, with all due respect not all developers have access to books, in this example the guy is from Delhi and he simply cant afford to buy the books... I have asked and its outsourced so I have no influence on his managers. Whilst myself and most monks have had the benefit of being able to afford to buy things which help, this isnt always the case... so I hope you can realise this !

I just want to help not solve any political problems..

Should I just bite the bullet and say I just dont have time ?

...learning perl book is the bible... but thats not a possibility, without me forking out for it myself...

I don't mean to offend, but it sounds like your heart is not into the task of training this person. If your time is worth more than and you are unable to train him, perhaps the less expensive solution would be to buy him the book. Second-hand previous releases can be had from amazon vendors from $3 to $10.

Or he could just ask Google for "Perl Oreilly" and he can read any of the Perl books. I'm not condoning it, but if he's not going to get the books, it's out there.

HTH

PS: if he doesn't have the programming mentality, I don't think the perl books are going to be a very good start. He's going to need some way to be introduced to these concepts as well.

Consider the economics of the situation. He needs this information from somewhere and you've offered two possibilities.

1. Teach him yourself
2. Buy the books for him

Even if you're a very low-end developer, you're making at least $10/hour. Now suppose it takes at least 8 hours (assuming he is the most astute student the world has ever seen) to learn everything you could teach him. That's $80 out of someone's pocket plus whatever they'd have made from your productivity on a paying project because you had to take time out of your day to get a team member up to speed. On the other hand, suppose you pick up the books used for $15 a piece, mail them to him (I know, international shipping's fairly expensive, but not $50 expensive), and let him get up to speed. I'm certain if you bring that to whatever manager you have (if you aren't the manager), he'll accept the latter. Afterall, a machine doesn't work properly if one of the gears is missing half its teeth.