Laufeyjarson writes…

Mr. Conway suggests that you can cascade uses of the ternary (?:) operator instead of an if-elsif-else chain.  He feels this is much more readable.  I strongly disagree. (more…)

The idea behind this Best Practice is to explain how a table lookup can be used instead of an if/elsif/elsif/elsif/elsif/else block to make selections from a set of constants.  This is almost always a good choice! (more…)

The PBP say “Avoid cascading an if.”  At first glance, this sounds like a pretty harsh suggestion.  As it turns out, I rarely ever have any issue following this suggestion.  Well organized code seems not to need long if/elsif/elsif/elsif/elsif/else blocks. (more…)

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…)