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Perfect!  Thanks to everyone who contributed.

Cool. Thanks for the excellent answer and the clarification.

dharbigt-ga did a wonderful job of answering my question.

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This is grand, thanks a lot cap'n.  I'm glad to have some opinionated,
thought-provoking advice, and several points here were non-obvious to
me.  I didn't know, as you say, that Perl was a very broad language
and that knowing it in depth might be useful for that reason.  Other
stuff like following best practices, taking classes with good
teachers, and getting a mentor is stuff that makes sense but (for me)
has needed to be stated clearly and directly in order to sink in.

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