Obviously, it depends...

The first thing to say is that, if you are using sub is known at compile time (e.g. its not an object-method), then you should probably use prototypes: then you get the errors, not your users:

  sub foo ($$) { print "@_\n"; }
  foo(1,2,3);

  % perl foo.pl
  Too many arguments for main::foo at foo.pl line 2, near "3)"
  Execution of foo.pl aborted due to compilation errors.
[download]

If you want to do run-time checking, then you should consider that it may well be end-users who see the errors, not the person writing the script. In this case, I'd use the following guidelines:

• If possible, have default values for params not supplied -- then its not an error
• If you really want to die, then you should provide an error message that tells the user that its not their fault:

  Internal Error: The script you are running has found an error made by its programmer, and regrets that it is unable to continue. Please email (the developer), and include the following information (... stack dump ...). Please accept our appologies

Basically, detailed messages probably won't help the user, so don't confuse them. --Dave.

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