That's a good question. Over the past year or so I have learnt a lot from experience. I used to always do everything myself, or inhouse, and spent time trying to learn, hack, post messages in forums asking for help etc. While it was fun (in fact I loved it!) it didn't really make economical sense.

I often outsource things these days. I'm always trying to be very aware of my time, and how much my time costs, and at the end of the day it's probably a better idea just to outsource to a good programming company or person and get the job done fast and efficently. You'll save yourself hours of your time - time that would probably be better spent doing something else, less fun ;-).

So, nowdays I restrict my Perl to my own time and still play with it for fun mostly, but I now outsource all major projects. Small hacks I can now manage without too much of trouble, but any major project I try not to re-invent the wheel. The wheel has already got shiny spokes and alloy trimms on it :-)

Glad you found the links useful. There are very many knowledble and talented people over at http://www.perlmonks.org and it#s a great fun learning environment. But, this could also be said of these forums. So, stick around and see how you get on. A lot of us have been there ourselves and are more than happy to help.

Rgds

- wil