I worked with Perl for years, and I don’t recommend it for a beginner. There are just too many idiosyncrasies that belong specifically to the language that you’d be better off with Python for learning the basics.
I’m also not really sold on that book, which from the code samples looks really old. I’d recommend two books: Modern Perl and Perl Best Practices.
Edit: I’d also recommend working in Go but potentially the way i/o intersects with interfaces makes it a bit more challenging.


Speaking primarily as a Go developer, what I see is companies cutting costs, and Java is battle-tested and there’s a tonne of talent out there who know the language. If Java in your area already pays more, I’d say you’ve already got your answer.
Besides which, if Go truly does eat the Java world in the next couple of years (it won’t), the language is still young enough for you to pick it up fairly quickly. Especially with the help of AI.