I know HTML, Java, and a bit of PHP, and now I'm getting into Perl just so I can get a bit of understanding of the general idea of it when I move on to C.

So I'm looking for a Perl IDE that's free, but pretty great. Mostly a good debugging program.

Links, names, whatever is appreciated.

Why don't you just get VS and learn C++/C#/VB?

Perl is a scripting language ya know, it isn't really very close to C. Java is pretty close to C.

Also, don't learn in IDEs, learn in notepad. Once you are proficient then swap to an IDE :]

Parde or Eclipse are the best free Perl IDE's I can find, you should also use an API searcher if your thinking of learning multiple languages: http://start.gotapi.com/
Oh, and code fetch has a ton of perl examples: http://www.codefetch.com/
For instance here is quicksort (both recursive and iterative) in perl: http://www.codefetch.com/search?qy=quicksort&lang=perl

If you are going to learn C just understand it's rather low level, you'd find it hard to make good use of it for a small project, C++ is better for rapid development in my opinion.

Oh yeah, forgot to say Eclipse is the weapon of choice

The ignorance in your post astounding. Java is nowhere near the likes of C/C++ in syntax, while perl closely resembles a stripped down version of it.

As for an IDE, that is also completely ridiculous. Syntax highlighting and on-the-fly notifications of silly mistakes are great for beginners.

How I wish, Gorman, that you would know anything about what you are saying, before trying to sound smart. It would save all of us, oh, so much trouble.

Oh Jalis, saying that Java and C are no where alike in syntax gave away that you were trolling.

Better luck next time!

Actually I think jalis was just in a bad mood, we were talking on IRC at the same time and I think the similarity of the two languages just totally skipped his mind, considering as suomynona pointed out Java is a subset of C++. Either way to avoid derailing I can't offer any more perl help than those two sites and IDE's, but if you want C or C++ help you can PM me at any time.

(Oh also I'd highly recommend you have Notepad++ if you don't have it already, learning to debug your own programs from the source code alone in a valuable skill in programming, and programming in notepad or notepad++ is sure to help you develop that.)

You don't need an IDE for perl.

perl is old-school, so you debug it using "print".

Take time to learn regular expressions while you at it. That is the fun part of perl.