I'm currently writing a quick but not too dirty Perl script to generate invoices for services provided by our company.

I've been careful how I code it as both our bosses are wise in the ways of Perl. To this extent I've been balancing "Software Engineering Think" with their acutely pragmatic view of Software. What that means is that using XML or Template Toolkit is liable to raise an eyebrow as this is a quick solution. Please don't autorespond, with the joys of CPAN, I use it frequently, but require a solution that works with the standard distribution

It has occurred to me in doing this that the most economical method of munging the data is to convert and process simultaneously which dragged me back to my University days and COBOL classes with the original JSP Jackson Structured Programming.

The idea of JSP is to make software analysis non intuitive, now I'm not hot on that but.. I advocate it for smaller jobs that really shouldn't require thought. JSP is basically this:

• draw a diagram of the input structure
• draw a diagram of the output structure
• Overlay one with the other to get the system structure

It feels very comfortable in a quick-Perl way.

Blah blah blah standard disclaimer about using UML for OO or module structure diagrams for functional programming ;). Has anyone else tried using JSP for those medium sized hacks?

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Brother Frankus.

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