This is inspired by (and largely in response to) the Zen of Python by Tim Peters. 
Beauty is subjective.
Explicit is recommended, but not required.
Simple is good, but complex can be good too.
And although complicated is bad,
Verbose and complicated is worse.
Brief is better than long-winded.
But readability counts.
So use whitespace to enhance readability.
Not because you're required to.
Practicality always beats purity.
In the face of ambiguity, do what I mean.
There's more than one way to do it.
Although that might not be obvious unless you're a Monk.
At your discretion is better than not at all.
Although your discretion should be used judiciously.
Just because the code looks clean doesn't mean it is good.
Just because the code looks messy doesn't mean it is bad.
Reuse via CPAN is one honking great idea -- let's do more of that!

[download]

In reply to Zen of Perl by bellaire

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.