I've been a perl user/fan a little bit longer than I have been here on PerlMonks. And while I have received boundless information both here and on the web with regards to perl, I still felt as if I didn't know perl. So I went to Borders, picked up the LLama book, and started reading.
As I was going through the book, I was impressed by a number of things that I had already picked up on. I was much more impressed however by how much I didn't know. While I've always felt that one of my strengths as a programmer was my attention to detail, one of my weaknesses has definitely been not always picking the most efficient solution to the problem. As I look back over some of the code I've already written for this project, I find myself using new (to me) and better ways to do things, as some of what I had done was just plain, umm, wrong :P
Something I had forgotten (or had taken for granted, I'm not sure which) is that every day is a learning experience, that every day I know more than I did the day before. I just don't notice it as much with my usual programming languages/tools (C++, SQL, Powerbuilder) because the rate at which I learn is far less than my rate of learning perl (as I've accumulated a lot more information about those languages than I have about perl to date ;)
What am I getting at? That I think everyday we should be seeking new challenges and knowledge. To stop learning is to stop growing. And I feel that as long as one continues to learn that they will continue to be an effective programmer. As long as I continue to be fascinated by perl, I think that will be for some time to come :) And I hope to be able to give a little more back to a community that has been so good to me.
Thank you, Merlyn, for the excellent book, and for opening my eyes to a wider world of perl. Next time you find yourself in the Chicago area, I owe you a drink :)
MrCromeDome
Update: Meant Llama book, not Camel book. Thanks davorg for catching me ;)