Ah, well, at least you said why. I do appreciate that.

Before I explain further, I would like you to know that I didn't really mean to attack you personally with the "ivory tower" comment but I can certainly see how it could seem that way. I'll try to clarify that in a moment...

I'm sure it's obvious to you that, when I wrote that, I hadn't yet read the preface to PBP. That changed this evening when, after taking the family out for pizza, we all wandered into a nearby bookstore and I gave your book a little more attention than I did in my initial skimming. Funny choice of words that "ivory tower" phrase, huh? Yum... Toe jam.

Anyway, I said I'd explain what I meant so I will. I didn't actually intend to single you out with the "dropping sheaves" comment, but meant to convey that if the bulk of one's development took place in isolation, without pre-existing coding standards (and lots of pre-existing code) then the wholesale adoption of the practices you set forth in PBP would, in fact, be fine. Otherwise, one would have to take many other things into consideration before adopting those practices. And, my last comment about not naming the book Perl Pretty Good Practices was meant to convey that I felt sure you knew that, despite the book's absolute sounding name.

In retrospect, it's obvious that my choice to be abrasive didn't mix at all well with a serious sentiment and that touch of facetiousness. I not only expressed my thoughts poorly, but as a nasty little bonus you, quite naturally, felt attacked.

So, I'm sorry. Please accept my apology.

Oh, one last thing... I've thought some about why I chose to be abrasive. There are two reasons. For one, I was really perplexed over why this little subthread was attracting downvotes at all. I was frustrated with it because, well, I usually know why when my nodes go negative and I couldn't figure it out. I know that happens, but I let it get the better of me. (Shame on me.) The second reason is hazier, but it sort of boils down to being irritated with this nagging feeling that buying your book is almost obligatory. It seems as if it has already been pretty successful (congrats, btw) and has seen wide-spread acceptance. The OP being a case in point. And I almost feel as if I have to buy your book if I don't want to be left out of the loop just because it's likely to have a real impact on the whole community. And, I guess that irritates me because, damnit, I already have shelf after shelf of O'Reilly books, a good many with "Perl" in the title, and though some of them came in handy once (like the 1st and 2nd edition of the Camel) most of them aren't really much use to me and were purchased purely out of some sick and bizarre compulsion to hoard attractively colored flat-bound paperback technical books with titles printed neatly in Adobe ITC Garamond on covers decorated with 19th century engravings from the Dover Pictorial Archive. Mind you, this didn't really bother me until I needed to move twice within the span of a year and had to lug them along with me.

Actually, I imagine if I did buy your book, I'd find some interesting things in it and I'd probably even adopt a few of the practices you recommend. But, after a couple of weeks, it'd just become another brightly colored rectangle on my shelf. So, as much as I'd like to buy it for those few choice nuggets, I'm going to take a pass.

Edit: reworded the fourth paragraph so that it actually parses as English and makes some sense.

-sauoq
"My two cents aren't worth a dime.";