There is more than one way, and there can be more than one right way. Notice I said, 'can'. I have spent some time lately reading and re-reading portions of thedamian's "Perl Best Practices". I don't always agree 100% with what he has to say, but he argues it well and gives good sound reasons for adpoting the practice he prescribes. Some years back I took much advice from merlyn and Joseph Hall in "Effective Perl Programming" for the same reasons.

The biggest problem I see is that the arguments against Perl are often made by fad followers who have never used the language! And then the perpetrators of some truly horrible code are pronounced heroes by a seemingly ignorant few.

In my estimation, one of Perl's biggest problems is also its greatest strength. It is readilly available and approachable by most people with only slightly more than a passing interest in programming. Thus resulting in a series of public archives and references that are a great ego boost to the authors, but a mill-stone arund the neck of many others in the community.

jdtoronto