Just because someone uses a require doesn't mean that they forfeit the user of other modules. I used modules for years before writing my own.

And for small apps, Namespaces isn't really a large factor.

It's easy to over-engineer applications. Many times, someone just wants to write a bit of code that does the trick on a single machine where they are the user, the developer and the maintainer. Under these circumstances, I don't see why someone who is relatively new to perl should jump into creating modules and worrying about namespaces.

Having said that, I will concede that there is never a better alternative to good coding standards and procedures. But if you really want to get there, it can happen a bit more organically. As soon as he runs into a namespace issue he'll be looking into modules. Let it wait until then. Right now, he needs to clean up the clutter a bit.