I see your arguments and they are true. But - there are no comments in the sample code. Although it is more or less obvious what it does (even without the surrounding node), wouldn't
sub discard_sortkey { unpack 'x[nn]A*' };
sub prepend_yearmonth {
    my( $alpha, $num ) = m[^(\S+?)\s*(\d+)$];
    $num += 2000 if $num <= 49;
    $num += 1900 if $num <= 99;
    pack 'nnA*', $num, $months{ $alpha }, $_;
}
print for map{ discard_sortkey } sort map { prepend_yearmonth } <DATA>
+;

[download]
be evenly obvious, although there is still no comment?

My field of operations was mainly CRM/ERP systems. At my first job, we used AWK to generate COBOL program source for the different target systems. At my previous job I still generated (and sometimes programmed) COBOL - in this very century. Of course, when Perl became known, I liked it at first sight, especially because I knew the patchwork tools it aimed to replace.

OTOH, most of the languages I had worked with before, had variable declarations and no "contexts", hence no need for sigils. Thus, when I later saw Python, I liked it, too. I think this is what the OP called "cleaner".

I see virtues in both approaches.

(Update: Originally posted under a different node in this thread)

In reply to Re^8: I want you to convince me to learn Perl by soonix
in thread I want you to convince me to learn Perl by kasxperanto

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