You raise some very good points dws - i personally still prefer to do it "right" at the expense of building a heavier solution and over engineering the problem. Why? Because for me, 9 out of 10 times it is easier and faster for me to do so. When i first joined the Monastery, i was hesitant to search CPAN and spend time reading a module's documentation. But, after practice and experience, using modules became a lot easier, and even fun. I think they help one to focus on the mortar and not the bricks, so to speak: instead of re-inventing a wheel, just concentrate on how to use the wheel (i feel like i am preaching to the choir now ;)). This way, one can focus on the overall design - they sure helped me in this area.

UPDATE:
Had to run off to dinner - while i was gone i remembered an incident where i chose the 'right now' way instead of the right way. Recently i needed to parse some HTML that i wrote, instead of using a robust CPAN module, i quickly threw together:

my @mp3 = $html =~ /([-.\w]+\.mp3)/g;
[download]

Pretty fragile code, but i have to admit that i was able to finish my task very quickly. Of course, since i am the one who wrote the HTML that i parsing, i can get away with it. Trying to find that wonderful balance between 'being smart' and 'getting stuff done' is indeed an art. :)

jeffa

L-LL-L--L-LL-L--L-LL-L--
-R--R-RR-R--R-RR-R--R-RR
B--B--B--B--B--B--B--B--
H---H---H---H---H---H---
(the triplet paradiddle with high-hat)