I learned Perl without any math or computer science background. My highest math class was intro to trig. I think I remember the gist of the Pythagorean Theorem.

I learned Perl without any math or computer science background. My highest math class was intro to trig. I think I remember the gist of the Pythagorean Theorem. I put myself through school making money writing free software (I can't sell water in the desert, either). But Perl made enough sense to get some work done, after reading a few O'Reilly books. Strings in, strings out - made sense. That was a good, "Why Perl?" for me. YMMV.