i haven't been in the perl culture for that long, a few years, little more. But while i've tried to get into cultures of other languages, i've never succeeded. It's not necessarily that perl culture is that much better than others (though i think so :), but more that i can continue to have fun while coding in perl. Sometimes i'll think up a script to write just because i haven't done perl in a few days, it will be a quick hack, or a professional enterprise, or maybe just something for myself. But i continue to write perl.

Now, not that my experience ties into others lives well, but i think that coding often can be good to keep the mind sharp and alert, the keyboard fingers dextrous, and the laziness extreme. But coding the same style all the time can be boring/tedious/whatnot, and while it's good for keeping a job, it's not good for mental stability. Diversity(tm) is good.

So, here is my meditation in a nutshell: code variously. If you are constantly worried about security 24/7 you'll only get migraines. On the side, write a short little fun script that lets you forget about those headaches for a couple minutes/hours (it's my guess that obfuscation started out this way, some bored coder in his office couldn't keep thinking about the project at hand, but oh wouldn't that be nifty and hard to read? <evil grin>). If you're always writing fast and loose, write something stringent with strictures that doesn't make mistakes (or realistically, as few as possible).

i originally got into perl because it was fun. Over the time i've been coding perl, i've personally found that changing up my style or doing something sdrawkcab or reinventing a wheel can be fun. i'm not a social expert, but i would venture a guess that many people here also think perl is fun.

Yet many times people seem uptight about how to do things. Often this is reasonable as many here deal with production code, but sometimes it is wholly undeserved as the coder was merely having fun. This is why i am asking people to code variously, to remember what fun it is to write code. Note the lack of adjectives on that word 'code'. It doesn't have to be good code to be fun.

i've rambled enough, but my point, if i truly have one, is that we should not only write good code, but we should write bad code, and silly code, and strict code, and dangerous code, and saintly code, and above all fun code.

nuf fo tnuoma etairporpa eht evah,
jynx

PS This post does not encourage bad code, merely having fun and learning from mistakes :-)