• Object orientation is always better

  In many cases, OO is just a pain in the ass, and a functional interface is better. I really like perl 6's ability to create your own operators.

• Embedding text in scripts is always wrong

  A quick-and-dirty solution can save both time and money. Besides, there's nothing wrong with embedding just a little. In situations where overloaded servers have to be used, templating can be too slow.

• Prototypes should never be used

  Tilly told me why prototypes are bad. And they sure are. But sometimes, they're good. The (&@) for creating map-like syntax, or the () prototype to let perl inline your sub (great for constants).

• Calling external programs when perl can do it is about as wrong as it can get

  There's the quick-and-dirty approach again. Although wrong in many production projects, it can speed up development a lot if you're creating a one-time hack, or a simple sysadmin script.

• XML is the #1 way to store data

  XML is a hype. XML is a nice format to store data in, but there's a lot of ways to do it. I personally dislike pipeline seperated files, but even those can be quite good.

• Never use a regex to grab the filename out of a path

  ($foo = $bar) =~ s!.*/!! is easier than using File::BaseName. The code's not portable, but not all code has to be.

• Death to Dot Star!

  Dot star has a function. If you know what it does, and it does what you want, USE IT.

• Etcetera etcetera

  Many things, including templating are overrated. Some developers (including yours truly) forget there are other solutions that can be as good, or maybe even better in particular cases.

2;0 juerd@ouranos:~$ perl -e'undef christmas'
Segmentation fault
2;139 juerd@ouranos:~$
[download]

If it is not a throw away script then you need to attempt at least some good programming practices.

In my experiance I've found that too many simple hacked together CGI scripts stay in production because a) they work and b) nobody has the time/money to fix them. The problem is that 6 months down the line somebody normally has to make a small change, which turns out to be another hack and so on and so forth.

Sometime you have to sit down and say, lets make this work properly and do it in a way that allows simple maintanance.

I have a big problem with embedded HTML in CGI scripts, I might be the one that has to maintain it and then I've got to spend ages trying to work out how it works.

Plus in his code he used the normal perl quoting which means he has to remember to put a \ in front of each quote which is a royal pain in the arse.

What's wrong with:

use File::Basename;
$foo = basename($bar);
[download]

It's a hell of a lot more obvious what this does than your rexexp.

gav^