What's the best way to learn perl for a python programmer?

[Magnus Lycka]

vj wrote:
> I've been given a project which requires writing scripts that need to
> be run on over 3000 servers. Only about 15% of them have python
> installed on them. While all/most of them will have perl.
> 
> I'll try and do as much as possible in pexpect but am sure I'll have do
> some significant perl. Any suggestions on what is the best way to get
> upto speed on perl?

The thing that really bit me when I tried to go back to Perl after
years with Python was dereferencing. Completely obvious things in
Python, such as extracting an element from a list inside a dict in
another list felt like black magic. I actually gave up, but later I
realized that there is an entire chapter in Programming Perl about
the stumbling blocks with dereferencing in Perl.

I don't think people in this group :) will disagree if I claim that
Python software is much more maintainable and easier to develop and
debug than Perl scripts. That's probably relevant if they are to
run on thousands of servers.

I'd make a real effort to investigate if it's possible to either
install Python on all boxes or use something like cx_Freeze to make
executables out of the scripts.