Re^2: Stupid mistakes I repeatedly make

[tlm]

my %hash = { };

I found this used several times in code we'd hired some contractors to do. The infuriating thing was that it actually seems to work...

You need to start using the -w flag more, my friend (that or use warnings). If you had, then perl would have warned you:

% perl -we 'my %hash = { }'               
Reference found where even-sized list expected at -e line 1.