Perl's slogan:
There is more than one way to do it. TIMTOWTDI
Easy things should be easy, and hard things should be possible.
And don't tell me there isn't one bit of difference between null and space, because that's exactly how much difference there is.
And it goes against the grain of building small tools.
Innocent, Your Honor. Perl users build small tools all day long.
Be consistent.
But you have to allow a little for the desire to evangelize when you think you have good news.
Down that path lies madness. On the other hand, the road to hell is paved with melting snowballs.
Even if you aren't in doubt, consider the mental welfare of the person who has to maintain the code after you, and who will probably put parens in the wrong place.
I already have too much problem with people thinking the efficiency of a perl construct is related to its length. On the other hand, I'm perfectly capable of changing my mind next week…
If you want to see useful Perl examples, we can certainly arrange to have comp.lang.misc flooded with them, but I don't think that would help the advance of civilization.
In general, they do what you want, unless you want consistency.
Perl is designed to give you several ways to do anything, so consider picking the most readable one.
There ain't nothin' in this world that's worth being a snot over.
We all agree on the necessity of compromise. We just can't agree on when it's necessary to compromise.
When in doubt, parenthesize. At the very least it will let some poor schmuck bounce on the % key in vi.
I want to see people using Perl to glue things together creatively, not just technically but also socially.
If someone stinks, view it as a reason to help them, not a reason to avoid them.
http://www.cpan.org/misc/lwall-quotes.txt.gz
http://www.cpan.org/misc/japh
http://www.perl.com/doc/FMTEYEWTK/versus/perl.html
http://dev.perl.org/perl6/
http://www.poniecode.org/
http://www.perl.org/advocacy/summerofcode/
