The objective of the site is to quickly get you programming with Perl, but also to make sure you're familiar with all the topics which a skilled Perl programmer should learn.

Why Perl?
As a programming language Perl is particularly known for its ability to manipulate text. While it can be run on a local PC to work magic with text files, Perl is most often used on a web server to receive user inputs (typically from HTML forms) and to use those inputs for real time server database updates and to return custom web pages to users.

Perl is Easy to Learn!
While Perl is very powerful, only a few hours study is needed to get you to the point of being able to write useful programs. Within a week you'll be able to write complex Perl programs. There are more complicated aspects of Perl which can take much longer to master but you can expect to progress quickly through 80% of the language's capabilities.

Getting Started
Here are a few additional facts about Perl to help get you started.

• Perl is free!
  The first thing you'll be happy to learn is that Perl is free! It is available at no charge from several sources, but my recommendation is the ActivePerl distribution from ActiveState.

• IDE - Integrated Development Environment
  Unlike many languages, Perl does not include built-in code editing capabilities, typically called an Integrated Development Environment (IDE). Perl programmers use a variety of 3rd party IDEs, programmers' editors, and simple text editors to write their code.

  I find the NoteTAB text editor adequate for my needs, but my Perl IDEs page has more information on freeware and shareware IDEs for you to consider.

The next section, Introduction, provides further introductory details about learning to program with Perl.