if you don't want to go with something like Log::Log4perl, you could reduce it to a subroutine call, to make the typing easier: 
use constant DEBUG => 1;

debug("\$variable = $variable");

sub debug {
    return unless DEBUG >= 1;
    print 'DEBUG: ', @_, "\n";
}

[download]
you say you are not worried about execution speed, but the above can be enhanced to support lazy evaluation of potentially expensive debugging operations by using closures: 
sub debug {
    return unless DEBUG >= 1;
    print 'DEBUG: ',
        ( ref $_[0] eq 'CODE' ? $_[0]->() : @_ ),
        "\n";
}

[download]
that allows things like: 
debug( sub { Data::Dumper->new([$variable], ["variable"])->Dump } );

[download]
and the expensive Dump operation will only be executed if DEBUG.

In reply to Re: debug statements by mreece
in thread debug statements by koknat

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