If I were one of your successors, I would first ask you to point me to the source-code and to some web pages that will help me understand what’s going on.   (Books would be helpful, except that I know I won’t have time to read them.   I should presume that I do not actually require a thorough understanding of the subject yet.)   I would first stare at the code and take long walks around the parking lot.   I might throw a few darts at nearby tree-stumps.   (See below.)   Then, after a couple days, I’d ask you to sit down with us and just walk us through the programs ... to talk about them ... maybe to let us record the conversation ... maybe join us in a couple games of darts.   (See below.)

The Perl language is not particularly complicated.   Oh, it has its inevitable quirks as all human creations do, but (especially if you have been in this neighborhood before) it’s not really so crashingly new or esoteric as Perl Monks might suppose.   You can make good guesses and most of the time be close-enuf to right, that is, if the original designer was not too fond of “golf.”   (And if you were, then your photograph will in due time become a dart board.)   (See above... ;-) )   But for the time being at least, what I really would most want to know is ... the designer’s intent.   That means you.   Assuming that I can pore through the actual source code at my leisure, and play with darts and with little bits of rope and model trees and effigies that (come to think of it) do look vaguely like you, and assuming also that I will have your new office extension and maybe the license-plate number of your car:   “show me what you were thinking when you designed and wrote this code.”   That is the one thing that a book cannot tell me.