Sorry I was obscure. Please note that that paragraph was designated Humor and not to be taken too seriously. I learned Perl from the first two Camel Books, very roughly from the first edition and with a little depth from the second. So I emulated the code presented there, specifically the bits return bless {}, ref( $self) || $self; and sub AUTOLOAD seemed to be recommended by the authors. So I used them, this was cargo culting. The cuteness and convenience of the constructs seduced me; obviously I was not alone. Now I would be more cognizant that a manual's authors obligation to demonstrate the features of a language surpasses their duty to instruct the reader about when to use the various features. Wall, Chrisiansen, and Schwartz wrote it and I imitated it--cargo cult.

If I use Perl over PERL because well respected members of perlmonks indicate that it is proper that, again, is imitation. Again based on deference to authority--cargo cult. In my case my recollection of the pink Camel is that it presented PERL as much an acronym as BASIC. That I discount my own memory makes it an exceptional case of cultism. That Perlers will think me foolish for the former and fine for the latter does amuse me slightly.

Regarding use strict; I had used perl as a replacement for awk, sed, and sh. I complained of the non-scalability of perl and was clued to the creation of the strict pragma. That increased my interest in Perl. My usage of strict is not cargo cultism, I avoided writing all but small scripts because I understood all too well some of the problems that it deals with.

just because something is considered good style and [is] widely followed in a community does not make following it mere cargo cult.

I say if such prejudices or judgements of the herd, or herd leaders, are the only reasons one follows a practice it is mere cargo cult. I do not disdain cargo cultism. I understand the negative connotations but do not give them weight. Some cargo culting is unavoidable. We learn by doing so we may be doing something we do not much understand, if it works for us and others it may go unquestioned by many. There is an efficiency in that.

Be well,
rir

In reply to Re^3: PERL as shibboleth and the Perl community by rir
in thread PERL as shibboleth and the Perl community by merlyn

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