Well - a non-working script is normal for me.
In Perl I'm used to write just a couple of lines, run them, debug them and then continue. (*)
Actually I'm much more concerned if a script runs faultless on the first try. Then I have the really bad feeling that I have overlooked something and something went terribly wrong.
Rata
(*) a couple of years ago I was developing in a huge telecommunication-environment using CHILL. There we had linkage-times of 2-3 weeks! You really had to plan what (and how) to do before submitting your code. And of course you didn't want to be the reason if a linkage failed ... the "try out what happens"-approach I use in Perl is so much nicer! :-)