Laufeyjarson writes…

Everyone’s favorite set of Perl guideliens tells is not to forget about the awesome power of array slices!  That’s smart, too. Read the rest of this entry »

The PBP reminds us that we can use negative indexes to access arrays in reverse, instead of having to do calculations for it.  It suggests several useful reasons, including readability and getting the interpreter to complain in some cases instead of silently doing the wrong thing.  I don’t feel that strongly about this suggestion, but do follow it. Read the rest of this entry »

Mr. Conway suggests that you be wary of any modification to $_.  Personally, I take it further than that, and try never to use the thing at all. Read the rest of this entry »

Lots of people (not just the Best Practices) tell you never to use the regex match variables.  Listen to them! Read the rest of this entry »

The PBP suggests using local on any changes to one of the global punctuation variables.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Best Practice is to ‘use English’ for the uncommon punctuation variables.  This has been a hard thing for me to get used to, but I have found it useful. Read the rest of this entry »

Mr. Conway suggests that you initialize any variable you localize. Read the rest of this entry »

The PBP tells us to localize changes to package variables.  This is usually good sense, and prevents your changes from leaking out and messing with other things. Read the rest of this entry »

The PBP suggests avoiding package variables.  I almost can’t think of a reason to use one, so support this suggestion. Read the rest of this entry »

Global Variables; Just Say No.  Well, the PBP’s a little more lenient than that, and actually easier to follow by suggesting, “Avoid using non-lexical variables.” and admitting there are some times you just need a package or global variable. Read the rest of this entry »