Aside from the typical methods I used to pick up other languages (trial and error, practicing with sample projects, banging my head against the desk), the two most helpful resources I found were the book Modern Perl (http://modernperlbooks.com/books/modern_perl/chapter_00.html... a site I stumbled upon titled "Learn Perl in about 2 and a half hours" (http://qntm.org/files/perl/perl.html).