Perl Style: Program Perl, Not C/BASIC/Java/Pascal/etc

Jan 1, 1998 by Tom Christiansen

• `Just because you can do something a particular way doesn’t mean you should do it that way.’ –Programming Perl
• If you find yourself writing code that looks like C code, or BASIC, or Java, or Pascal, you are probably short-changing yourself. You need to learn to program idiomatic Perl – which does not mean obfuscatory Perl. It means Perl in its own idiom: native Perl.
• Fall not into the folly of avoiding certain Perl idioms for fear that someone who maintains your Perl code won’t understand it because they don’t know Perl. This is ridiculous! That person shouldn’t be maintaining a language they don’t understand. You don’t write your English so that someone who only speaks French or German can understand you, or use Latin letters when writing Greek.

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Copyright © 1998, Tom Christiansen All rights reserved.