Sure, you're right, $dbh, $sth (and $foo and $bar ;) and the like are almost reserved words... ;)

The sorry thing is, there's a lot of mulch() out there...

However in a script where I use HTTP::Request, CGI, and XML::Parser I'd still rather have $parser, $query and $request instead of $p, $q and $r.

But maybe that's just because qbpd are just mirrors and rotations of each other... ;)

Cheers,
Flexx