A lot of CGI scripts I see are written in Perl but PHP seems to be taking over for web stuff. Is Perl still worth learning in 2001? I need it for a job requirement but I'm wondering about its long-term future.

Also the syntax looks like line noise. Please tell me it gets easier.

Perl is incredibly powerful for text processing, system administration, and quick scripts. The web is shifting to PHP but Perl isn't going anywhere for non-web tasks.

Get the Learning Perl book (the Llama book) from O'Reilly. It's the best introduction. And yes, the syntax gets easier — regular expressions will become second nature.

The joke 'Perl looks the same before and after encrypting' is funny because it's true. But once you get it, Perl is absurdly productive.