That is too funny... and proves once again that no matter how good a programmer you are you can always manage hacks to do the thing you want and rationalize it.

I hope he's never had to divide by ten to get the proper length of a string in Java... and it really ought to make sense that you don't have to do it in Perl as well.

I've had my fair share of goof ups myself. I remember back when I was writing VAX assembly I had several routines that I made more efficient by using side effects of instructions... when parts of the system got updated I had basically shot myself in the foot because I didn't no idea why the code was not working.

And doesn't Hall & Schwartz in "Effective Perl Programming" say something like 'Never take anything for granted'... if you can't see an obvious explanation for why something works don't try and make something up to explain it away... figure out what the real reason is.