To be honest, I always start out making something that runs.

shell$ vi newprog.pl
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#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;

print "hey";
~
~
~
~
:wq
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shell$ chmod u+x newprog.pl
shell$ ./newprog.pl
heyshell$
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I'm not really sure why, but that's the first thing I do EVERY time I start writing a new program, regardless of what it is supposed to do. Sure, sometimes I use, "hello" or "what's up?", and sometimes I'll even throw in a "\n", but regardless of what I'm making, I always start this way. I think after this is done.

    -Bryan