Re^3: 20 most important Perl Best Practices

Your list is nothing more than yet-another-arbitrary-and-capricious-ruleset that uses thin justifictions to imbibe your personal preferences with theocratic status. Yet another list that doesn't correspond with anyone elses arbitrary list. Another set of arbitrary rules that will confuse newbies and frustrate the experienced coming from other places where different arbitrary lists were in force.

There is only one definitive list -- it's called Perl.

You are second guessing the heralded and qualified language designer to come up with some subset of the defined language on the basis of what qualification?

Even where you agree with the language designer in one place -- lower-case and underscores -- you later contradict him -- and yourself -- with "only CamelCase". This is both capricious, and more damning, inconsistent.

Your rules appear to be aimed to favour restricting and emphasising the linguistic elements of the language, rather than the structure of the algorithm, which is the completely wrong thing to be doing. The language's syntax is already very constrained and well documented. Whether those completely new to programming, or those migrating in from other languages, learning Perl syntax is just a matter of exposure.

What all programmers should be doing when writing their code, is trying to capture the essence of the variable part of their programs -- the algorithms -- in as clear and concise manner as possible. And perl's full syntactic richness is expressly designed to allow that to be done.

By placing arbitrary restrictions on that syntactic richness, you do not make it easier to read the code, because the inevitable affect is to force the programmer to use more verbose code to capture the essence of the important part of the source code -- the algorithms.

With many of your proposed restrictions, you are effectively converting a 4GL to a 3GL with all the loss in productivity that implies.

See also Re: What is code readability? and follow-on discussion for specific counter example to some of your justifictions.

With the rise and rise of 'Social' network sites: 'Computers are making people easier to use everyday'

Examine what is said, not who speaks -- Silence betokens consent -- Love the truth but pardon error.

"Science is about questioning the status quo. Questioning authority".

In the absence of evidence, opinion is indistinguishable from prejudice.

The start of some sanity?

Comment on Re^3: 20 most important Perl Best Practices

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Re^4: 20 most important Perl Best Practices by greengaroo (Hermit) on Aug 23, 2012 at 00:59 UTC
OK, I understand your point. Now that I think about it, after reading your post and some others bellow, I realize that I am not really achieving my real goal: Helping less experienced Perl developers avoid pitfalls that would lead to hard to understand issues. I have to rethink my approach. Thank you very much for opening my eyes! Take my advice. I don't use it anyway. -- greengaroo	[reply]
Re^5: 20 most important Perl Best Practices by eyepopslikeamosquito (Archbishop) on Aug 23, 2012 at 01:10 UTC
achieving my real goal: Helping less experienced Perl developers avoid pitfalls that would lead to hard to understand issues Suggest you perform some detailed code reviews with your inexperienced Perl developers and write items found during the review on a wiki page, especially noting issues that crop up often. That way, you grow your list of common pitfalls over time based on real world issues in your environment. You may be able to evolve this into a code review checklist. Detailed reviews take time, so I normally run beginner's Perl code through Perl::Critic before the code review.	[reply]
Re^5: 20 most important Perl Best Practices by BrowserUk (Patriarch) on Aug 23, 2012 at 01:17 UTC
The above is one of the most courageous responses I've seen in a very long time. And this is one of the funniest things I've seen in even longer :) With the rise and rise of 'Social' network sites: 'Computers are making people easier to use everyday' Examine what is said, not who speaks -- Silence betokens consent -- Love the truth but pardon error. "Science is about questioning the status quo. Questioning authority". In the absence of evidence, opinion is indistinguishable from prejudice. The start of some sanity?	[reply]
Re^6: 20 most important Perl Best Practices by pemungkah (Priest) on Aug 26, 2012 at 21:03 UTC
Looking at that strip and trying to imagine I was a female programmer, I feel uncomfortable. Cf. Schwern's keynote. We can do better.	[reply]
Re^7: 20 most important Perl Best Practices by topher (Scribe) on Aug 30, 2012 at 16:16 UTC
Re^7: 20 most important Perl Best Practices by Anonymous Monk on Aug 27, 2012 at 00:12 UTC
Re^7: 20 most important Perl Best Practices by aaron_baugher (Curate) on Aug 27, 2012 at 02:16 UTC
Re^8: 20 most important Perl Best Practices by pemungkah (Priest) on Aug 30, 2012 at 23:46 UTC
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Re^7: 20 most important Perl Best Practices by BrowserUk (Patriarch) on Aug 26, 2012 at 22:04 UTC
Re^8: 20 most important Perl Best Practices by Ovid (Cardinal) on Aug 29, 2012 at 10:50 UTC
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Re^8: 20 most important Perl Best Practices by tinita (Parson) on Aug 29, 2012 at 11:56 UTC
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Re^8: 20 most important Perl Best Practices by davorg (Chancellor) on Aug 29, 2012 at 09:14 UTC
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Re^8: 20 most important Perl Best Practices by Aristotle (Chancellor) on Aug 29, 2012 at 09:55 UTC
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Re^6: 20 most important Perl Best Practices by jffry (Hermit) on Aug 31, 2012 at 18:32 UTC
I'm offended that the worst cartoon I've ever read in my life is getting this much attention. If that poor author ever analyzes his access logs he might think he has hit pay dirt with that cartoon, and then he'll make more like that. Please Gawd no! I think it is UKB's civic duty to inform the author all those hits to that one cartoon are anomalous results of his sensitivity training here at PerlMonks.	[reply]
Re^7: 20 most important Perl Best Practices by BrowserUk (Patriarch) on Aug 31, 2012 at 18:53 UTC
Re^6: 20 most important Perl Best Practices by greengaroo (Hermit) on Aug 24, 2012 at 03:32 UTC
:D ... thanks very much! Take my advice. I don't use it anyway. -- greengaroo	[reply]
Re^4: 20 most important Perl Best Practices by greengaroo (Hermit) on Sep 04, 2012 at 15:40 UTC
Hey, just want to say that I started a new thread with my revised list, if you haven't seen it yet: 20 tips to avoid pitfalls while Programming Perl. Thanks! There are no stupid questions, but there are a lot of inquisitive idiots. -- greengaroo	[reply]
Re^4: 20 most important Perl Best Practices by Anonymous Monk on Oct 19, 2017 at 19:36 UTC
To summarize your nonsense, ideally in a mix of flowery fonts, "Everything is good because it is possible and I say so. Capricious CamelCases to you, so ner."	[reply]
Re^5: 20 most important Perl Best Practices by BrowserUk (Patriarch) on Oct 19, 2017 at 23:33 UTC
Five years to respond!? Okay. In five years time, you'll understand your mistakes; but this place won't exist for you to admit them. But you'll know; and that is satisfaction enough. With the rise and rise of 'Social' network sites: 'Computers are making people easier to use everyday' Examine what is said, not who speaks -- Silence betokens consent -- Love the truth but pardon error. "Science is about questioning the status quo. Questioning authority". The enemy of (IT) success is complexity. In the absence of evidence, opinion is indistinguishable from prejudice. Suck that fhit	[reply]
Re^6: 20 most important Perl Best Practices by Maelstrom (Beadle) on May 02, 2024 at 17:39 UTC
Five is rookie numbers, I can beat that. Just wanted to add the reason you come off as an intolerable PHB of a co-worker outside of what Browseruk mentioned in his excellent response is this sentence "So far, I came up with 13, so I am missing 7 to complete my list." Imagine having to follow 7 more arbitrary, flow-destroying rules purely because some asshole wanted to meet a quota that was decided before the list was even written. I know you saw the error of your ways a decade before I saw this post but that's straight up pathological.	[reply]
Re^7: 20 most important Perl Best Practices by marto (Cardinal) on May 02, 2024 at 18:05 UTC
Re^8: 20 most important Perl Best Practices by Anonymous Monk on May 02, 2024 at 18:18 UTC
Re^8: 20 most important Perl Best Practices by Maelstrom (Beadle) on May 09, 2024 at 23:59 UTC
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