Here are a few other generalizations:

• Use strict.
• Don't reinvent the wheel.
• Don't use goto.
• Don't optimize up front.
• OO modules shouldn't export anything.

Those are all great ideas and Perl programmers would be better off if they lived by them. That being said, I've broken every one of those rules and will happily do so in the future, if need be. The important thing is that I understand the reasoning behind those things and try to live by them.

From what I can see from your post, you have the same opinion about HTML that I do, but you spent a lot of time qualifying it. I have that sort of attitude regarding my above list of generalizations, but I'd never get a single post finished if I was forced to make all of those qualifications. I toss out the generalizations first and then list exceptions only if needed.

In short, I'm not arguing with you, but for most situations that I encounter, whipping out regular expressions for HTML is a bad idea and encouraging programmers to follow that practice would be an even worse idea.

Cheers,
Ovid

New address of my CGI Course.