Hi, I'm just like you, and have been hacking at Perl code for 20 years as a hobby. The only code that effortlessly flows off of my keyboard is

#/usr/bin/perl
use warnings;
use strict;
[download]

after that, I'm consulting a library of my past code, good snippets which I have saved, or searching google for code examples. An esteemed monk here has a sig which reads "90% of all code has already been written", the secret is to find an existing code template for what you are trying to do. After you get some experience, a well-worded google search will almost always give you some usuable code to get started, the talent is in knowing the vocabulary of the language well enough to launch a precise search for your intended purpose.

Also when you see a good snippet, or write something yourself, save it in a personal code library so that when you need a script template, some time down the road, you just pull it out of your existing library. After 20 years, my Perl snippet collection is around 10 gig's !! It pays to have your collection in a set of useful subdirectories, like "file operations", "ascii hex", IPC, Tk, Gtk2, cgi, etc, etc, etc.

Don't worry, you are normal. :-)

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