I feel like my Perl is finally loosening up after three years. When I first started using the language I pulled out a lot of hair trying to make it look more structured, like Java. So for a long while I would nearly always use parentheses with methods and functions even when not required, just to make them look more like I thought they ought to. (Recall that in Java Class.member refers to a variable, where Class.member() refers to a (class) method). So I wrote a lot of code like:

return(grep(defined($_), @thingies));
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whereas now I'd probably say:

return grep(defined $_, @thingies);
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It's also been a recent change for me to use -> for dereferencing rather than prepending an extra $. I used to have a strong aversion to $this->{foo}, preferring instead $$this{foo}, whereas now that aversion is reversed. I suspect that it was originally a consequence of my early discomfort (read: total lack of comprehension) with respect to references, and using the form with fewer characters allowed me to pretend there wasn't anything spooky going on :^)

As a general trend, I find that I'm trying less to force my Perl into accordance with a priori principles and relying more on context (hence my sig). The downside is that I'm making decisions more based upon that nearly always elusive quality called "judgment"; the upside is that I think my judgment is getting better :^)

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"The dead do not recognize context" -- Kai, Lexx