"Why not just plain old last if $count == 10;? Is it ever possible for $count to be greater than ten without first being equal to ten?"

Perhaps. Perhaps not. However, last if $count >= 10; (if used at the bottom of a much larger amount of code than in your example), communicates the intent far better than the '==' version, and is, as you say, more or less free.

In the early days, we were far less P.C. We called it idiot-proofing (where the users were other programmers).

Actually, I still think of it that way :).

Update: ++ demerphq for succinctly rewriting your example code. Looks much closer to the way I'd write it.

dmm

If you GIVE a man a fish you feed him for a day
But,
TEACH him to fish and you feed him for a lifetime

In reply to Re: Defensive Programming by dmmiller2k
in thread Defensive Programming by George_Sherston

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":



  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.