I stayed away from ternary for a long time, but once you get use to it, it is a nice tool to have. It is certainly not a choice of either ternary or if, keep both in your tool box and you will be happy. I use ternary when they are simple cases like your example. It is ofter the most usefull for defaulting values and not creating several lines of if constructs. It is also usefull if you want to embed different things in a string.

Certianly not the most poetic use of it, but it should demonstrate the use well enough. If you find your self using temporary variable and if structures, it might just be that you can use a tenrary to replace them. Now in that same example if i wanted to say "object(s)" more than once you can break it out int a single ternary:

my $objects = $items == 1 ? "object" : "objects";
print "You have $items $objects. What would you like to do with your $
+objects?";
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And then if you I am going to change multiple variable based on the state of one, use an if. These are just my rules, guidlines, expereinces. Keep all your tools handy and sharp, because most things in perl fit somewhere, honest, they weren't just thrown in for the heck of it. Like any tool, if used wrong, they can do more damage than good. ;)