As Larry says, Perl is optimized for ease of use, not ease of learning.

Using statement modifiers is not obfuscation just because someone who has no idea of Perl will have a harder time understanding it. You shouldn't have to cater to the lowest common denominator.

Brevity is a corollary of laziness, and makes code easier to read. If you pick your shortcuts wisely, you will reduce the amount of red tape and thus make it easier for a reader to discern what the code is truly concerned with.

Obfuscation begins when the code uses roundabout ways of expressing its function, instead of straightforwardly stating what it is doing, so that the reader has a harder time telling the intent of a piece of code.

Good code says exactly what it is doing, as briefly as possible, using the constructs that most closely match the way a human thinks of the algorithm.

Makeshifts last the longest.

In reply to Re: Legible or Obfuscated? by Aristotle
in thread Legible or Obfuscated? by Velaki

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.