There's some entertainment value in watching people juggle nitroglycerin.
What you'll need most is courage. It is not an easy path that you've set your foot upon.
I still drive my 1977 Honda Accord. The paint is almost all worn off. It's still running.
I think software patents are a bad idea. Many patents are given for trivial inventions.
You don't have to know the whole language to use it usefully, you can do baby talk, you can do grown up talk, you can cuss in it, you can write poetry, you can be a playwright, is sort of the idea.
Although the Perl Slogan is There's More Than One Way to Do It, I hesitate to make 10 ways to do something.