I don't often come across projects where Perl is already used (generally I just get on with it and use Perl whenever possible). I think that in the last five years I've been at three places where Perl was used.

• At the first the code looked OK to me, but I didn't know much Perl at the time and looking back I'm pretty sure that it was basically shell scripts written using Perl syntax. I think most of it was written under Perl 4.
• The second one was the back end of large UK-based auction site and it was written by people who knew no Perl. I was brought in as a "Perl Expert" but whenever I suggested better ways to do things I was told that they didn't have time to go back and fix existing code and that as long as it worked they were happy with what they'd got.
• At the last place I spent months rewriting a system that was in Perl, but that had been written by someone whose Perl wasn't very good.

So, yes, my experience backs up your theory. I suspect the major problem is that there is so much bad Perl out there on the web that the chances of people coming across merlyn's Web Techniques columns before they find Matt's Script Archive is pretty slim.

--
<http://www.dave.org.uk>

European Perl Conference - Sept 22/24 2000, ICA, London
<http://www.yapc.org/Europe/>

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