Yet another take. Clear and elegant, but quite inefficient given large maximums. 

{
  my $count;
  my %h = map {$_ => ++$count} 'a'..'zzz';
  sub alphabetic_to_base10 {
    return $h{ lc( $_[0] ) } or die;
  }
}

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In reply to Re: Alpha base-26 to base-10... by Util
in thread Alpha base-26 to base-10... by eduardo

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