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copied!<p>I've recently had to make a similar transition for work reasons, and it's been pretty painful. For better or worse, Python has a very different philosophy and way of working than Perl, and getting used to that can be frustrating. The things I've found most useful have been</p> <ul> <li>Spend a few hours going through all the basics. I found the <a href="http://docs.python.org/tutorial/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">official tutorial</a> quite good, if a little dry.</li> <li>A good reference book to look up basic stuff ("how do I get the length of a string again?"). The ones I've found most useful are the <a href="http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0596158084" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Python Pocket Reference</a> and <a href="http://rads.stackoverflow.com/amzn/click/0672329786" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Python Essential Reference</a>.</li> <li>Take a look at this handy <a href="http://wiki.python.org/moin/PerlPhrasebook" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Perl<->Python phrasebook</a> (common tasks, side by side, in both languages).</li> <li>A reference for the Python approach to "common tasks". I use the <a href="http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596001674" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Python Cookbook</a>.</li> <li>An <a href="http://ipython.scipy.org/moin/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">ipython</a> terminal open at all times to test syntax, introspect object methods etc.</li> <li>Get <a href="http://pypi.python.org/pypi/pip" rel="nofollow noreferrer">pip</a> and <a href="http://pypi.python.org/pypi/setuptools" rel="nofollow noreferrer">easy-install</a> (to install Python modules easily).</li> <li>Learn about unit tests fast. This is because without <code>use strict</code> you will feel crippled, and you will make many elementary mistakes which will appear as runtime errors. I recommend <a href="https://nose.readthedocs.org/en/latest/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">nose</a> rather than the <a href="http://docs.python.org/library/unittest.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">unittest</a> framework that comes with the core install. unittest is very verbose if you're used to <a href="http://search.cpan.org/~mschwern/Test-Simple-0.94/lib/Test/More.pm" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Test::More</a>.</li> <li>Check out Python questions on Stack Overflow. In particular, <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1011431/python-things-one-must-avoid/">Python - Things one MUST avoid</a> and <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/530530/python-2-x-gotchas-and-landmines">Python 2.x gotcha’s and landmines</a> are well worth a read.</li> </ul> <p>Personally, I found <a href="http://www.diveintopython.net/toc/index.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Dive Into Python</a> annoying and patronising, but it's freely available online, so you can form your own judgment on that.</p>

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