In Perl, when you get an error, there are magic globals that the interpreter sets to the value of that error. If you’re going to do any other work before reporting the error, save those variables!  Work almost got this right… (more…)

A question came up at work the other day, if you could override the Perl open() function.  There’s many possible uses for this, but work’s was simple: we wanted a log of all files accessed during a program run.  The program is large, complex, and uses many modules.  An override of open() would let us record the file and open mode, then call CORE::open.

We couldn’t do it.  After a second look, I still can’t do it.  Not for all cases, anyway. (more…)

I work as a professional Perl developer.  We have a large and complex system which is built around a lot of Perl.  This system has been in use and in place for years, and handles an astonishing amount of load, using thousands of computers to do it.

I work with some excellent engineers, who are thoughtful, intelligent, hard-working folks.  They want to make the best system they can, and they want it to be reliable and dependable.  I have great co-workers.

I keep finding Perl that looks like it was written in 1990.   I find code like this: (more…)

I was just in a room with three competent, professional Perl developers, all of whom agreed that you can’t strip whitespace from both ends of a string in a single regexp. (more…)