Perl is a tool for people tired of doing things in asinine & limiting ways.
It's hard to learn if you don't have at least some experience with getting
work done or solving problems with less appropriate tools.
Ideally, you'd be a former C programmer
Minimally, you could be a win32 batch file writer.
More importantly, you need problems that could be better solved with a heavy
weight scripting language bursting with creative possibilities rather than
some silly minimalist engine with the most narrow of scopes predetermined by
others who think they know what the real world is like.
I too wanted to learn Perl when I first entered the I.T. field, but I was
discouraged. Not just by the learning curve, but the audience Perl was
directed to: Seasoned admins and power users who knew what they needed to do
Vague ideas about what perl can do didn't give me the Oomph I needed to learn
and be productive in it.
But after a year of pissy batch files, fussy WSH, and, God help me, Send-keys
I was able to sit my arse down and plow through the Llama book, and start being
productive.
Hang in there.
