RE: luke_repwalker.pl

[tilly]

I know you put a lot of work into this, so I am putting some work into style suggestions back. Please take this as constructive criticism because that is how it is meant:

1. Don't use "my" for things you are using as global variables. Instead "use vars". This gives more context to what you mean, and the habit will avoid some problems if you ever use mod_perl.
2. Keep lines down to 80 characters. Perl has no rule about how many lines a single line of code takes, so you can and should break a line of code across several actual lines for readability. This makes it easier to read and easier to print.
3. Your "scalar $#array+1" construct is redundant. Either use ($#array+1) or use "scalar @array".
4. If you are going to check parameters then use Carp, and confess to the problem, not die. That will give you a stack backtrace which makes the actual mistake far easier to track down. (In general aim to have every error message have enough information for debugging.)
5. Put the expected action first. For instance in write_file do an "or die" because you don't expect to. (Suggestion straight from perlstyle.)
6. In write_file you can and should use a hash slice instead of writing the hash lookup 5 times.
7. Personally I don't like your formatting for reasons explained in Code Complete. Namely that it right-shifts very fast, and it is a maintainance nightmare if anyone changes a line of code. (Because then you have to change several others.) Instead I suggest using whatever your standard block indent is.

Oh, and thanks for putting so much effort in. :-)