in reply to Perl best practices fanatism
I'm aware of but not very familiar with PBP. I'm also aware of some rather bizarre corporate programming rules, including forbidding indentation, requiring subroutines to fit on a single page of printout (about 60 lines), and even one requiring code to fit on one VDT screen (80 columns by 25 lines).
One thing I would worry about is whether the "do whatever PBP says" are substituting the dicta of PBP for the intellectual judgment needed for code clarity and maintainability, which is, after all, the goal of coding standards. I doubt Dr Conway expects his book to be carved in stone, and its rules enforced by inquisitors (those not currently working at Guantanamo).
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