(Reposted - originally by Tom Christiansen, preserved by Ilya Chelpanov at http://i72.narod.ru/perl-mastery.html, reposted here for convenience and posterity.)

The Seven Steps to Perl Mastery
by Tom Christiansen.

A Perl Novice ...
- Thinks CGI and Perl are interchangeable terms.
- Still thinks Perl looks like bad C code viewed over a noisy modem.
- Is insecure about the concept of dollar signs and at signs.
- Thinks Perl should be more like sh or tcl.
- Has heard of the `` Unix mindset '', but hopes it's a treatable condition.
…