in reply to Strange finish!!

I think most people would agree that omitting the semi-colon at the end of a block causes grief. Just because you can does not mean you should. For example:
if ($x == 42) {
   print "I have the answer\n"
}

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Then later add a line:
if ($x == 42) {
   print "I have the answer\n"
   print "to Life, the Universe, and Everything\n";
}

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and it fails with a syntax error. Doh!

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Re^2: Strange finish!!
by codeacrobat (Chaplain) on Nov 07, 2007 at 11:53 UTC
    One should also make it a habit to leave a comma in hash definitions. 
    %fortytwo = (
   "I have" => "the answer\n",
);

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    You don't have to take care of fixing the previous line, when adding a new one. 
    %fortytwo = (
   "I have" => "the answer\n",
   "to"     => "Life, the Universe, and Everything\n",
);

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    print+qq(\L@{[ref\&@]}@{['@'x7^'!#2/"!4']});
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      One should also make it a habit to leave a comma in hash definitions...
      And then you get bitten by exactly that habit when dealing with JavaScript: 
      var foo = {a:'A', b:'B',}; //syntax error

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      holli, /regexed monk/
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[d/l]
        Not just javascript, but C and Java as well. In fact, Perl is the first language I've seen that allows (and actually encourages) trailing commas like that. I have to admit, it's really handy. I hate editing big SQL statements and moving things around because I inevitably have a select A,B,C, from FOO; give me an error. Perl gives us the luxury of making the statements easy to move around or append to. Nice feature that.
        --
        I used to drive a Heisenbergmobile, but every time I looked at the speedometer, I got lost.
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