hello fellow devotees,

i have a minor crisis in my perl programming career.

i am in a situation where i am required to write code such that a beginner who has never done any programming before can understand exactly what it does.

by this point you may be thinking something along the lines of 'good code documents itself' etc..., but what it means is, in terms of this requirement, not using 'complicated' data stuctures, which have defined as anything more complicated than a list of lists. not using references, not using any OO, not using any special variables (other than $_ or @_) and not using any other 'esoteric' perl (apparently, recursion is esoteric perl...). the list goes on.

there may be one way to do it, but there is also a good way and a bad way.further, i can't use strict (it'll cause countless problems with legacy code) and -w is a no-no too. (remember, these are things imposed on me)

i have studied my perl hard, and continue to do so, but this is making me flag. why learn what you can't apply (although, i do love learning for the sake of learning)?

my point, if there is one, is how do you cope when your team lead and boss know less perl than you, they can't write good code, and marginalise you for knowing more than they do?

i love perl. the joy i get from it is immeasurable. if i conform to these requirements am i still programming perl?

In reply to to perl or not to perl by utopian

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