My approach to coding...

The problem is not 'What is the answer?', but 'What is the question?'. When you know what question to ask, you are indeed on the path to wisdom.

It's like playing jeopardy every day. Examples:

• I want to know how to find something and replace it with something else - What are Regular Expressions?
• I want to write web pages easily from Perl. What is CGI.pm?
• I want to connect to another computer and send/retrieve something. What are sockets? (or what is LWP?)

About a year ago, I had an epithany of sorts. I realised that the quagmire that I saw as Perl was turning into a mapped landscape. I didn't know where everything was, but I had a damn good idea where to start looking.

My blinkers are still set on completing the basic training (IMHO). Although I have come far, there is much I still need to know.

But in your situation, I think your next step is to start exploring the world of CPAN, and playing with modules you have absolutely no use for. Look at the code, play with them (if you can), and I bet that you'll see subs/objects/whatever that will click in your brain and help you formulate your next round of questions :)

Congratulations, you know enough to know how little you know :)

.02

cLive ;-)