I began learning Perl at an O'Reilly course in NYC, in Sep of 2000. The course I took was "Perl 101", taught by none other than the author of this post, brian d foy.
Over the past four years, my use of and skill with Perl have increased incredibly -- but I owe my initial understanding of it to brian d foy. Without that first core of understanding, I wouldn't have been able to progress with it like I have.
The lesson I walked away with that I think of most right now, is "print is your best debugger". It's true for me, so far.
brian, thanks for working hard toward learning Perl. If you hadn't, I doubt I would have!
