To repeat: "The only possibility of achieving really impressive increases in productivity is using other people's libraries." (Brucke Eckel, Thinking in C++, Prentice Hall, 1995).

IMHO, there is no way you (as a single person) can be sure what happens on your system today. The average computer system and its software components are much too complicated for this. In the time you need to understand the whole system, it will have changed away under your feet. You may be able to understand parts, but even this can be challenging if you work under time pressure.

Perl is a language for getting your job done.

If you want safe hardware, build your own.
If you want real OS security, go for OpenBSD.
If you want signed, vendor-approved code, go for Java.
If you want to guard against every possible known evil, join the ranks of the latest paranoia cult.

But please, let Perl be Perl.

Hm, that got pathetic. Ah, who cares.

Christian Lemburg
Brainbench MVP for Perl
http://www.brainbench.com