Laufeyjarson writes…

Mr. Conway suggests the very firm, “Never modify $_ in a list function.”  I’m torn on this. (more…)

The PBP suggests we factor complex map blocks into subroutines.  Please, please do this! (more…)

The last Best Practice suggested using map instead of a for loop to process lists.  There is an exception suggested by the Best Practices; if you’re transforming a list in place, use a for loop. (more…)

The Best Practice is to use grep and first instead of for to refine or search lists.  Again, there are good reasons, but I find it difficult, and am only improving with deliberate practice. (more…)

The Best Practice is to use map when generating a new list from an old one.  The reasoning is good, but I struggle with it anyway.  I’m getting better with effort. (more…)

The statement made by this Best Practice is simple, “Always declare a for loop iterator with my.”  The reasoning behind it is complex, and surprised me.  I am sure I have screwed this up in the past, too.  It’s important as there’s a real gotcha here! (more…)

Mr. Conway suggests that you give explicit names for all for loops, and avoid the possibly confusing use of $_.  To this I say: Hallelujah! (more…)

In those places you do actually need both the key and value, you will have to go ahead and do the lookup on the key to get the value.  The PBP reminds us to only do that once, instead of many times in the loop. (more…)

The Best Practice suggests avoiding subscripting arrays or hashes within loops.  They have a good reason too! (more…)

The Best Practices cast the use of C Style For Loops out of our lexicon.  Personally, I don’t get why this is, but haven’t needed them in a while. (more…)