To benefit everyone, Nathan Torkington came up with a handy checklist. If you run your question against this checklist, you are more likely to find at least one answer to your question. It would be much easier to grep the docs and FAQs first. There is also the added benefit that the Perl documentation and FAQs were created and reviewed by respected Perl experts. If you're interested in reading the group's charter, please go to Don't forget that there is also an unmoderated group for discussion of the Perl language, comp.lang.perl.misc, for topics that do not fall within the bounds of clpmod's charter.
Many reusable modules are available for immediate download and use.
See for details. Another excellent dead tree resource is the first and only periodical devoted to Perl, The Perl Journal. Perl 5.6.0 is the latest and most stable version of Perl. Many bugs have been fixed with this release, several useful new features added, and much more documentation has been provided. Good luck with your Perl work.