Re: I need perl coding standards (Coding Standards References)

[eyepopslikeamosquito]

Basic links:

• perlstyle and perlmodstyle (from standard Perl docs)
• Programming Perl 4th edition (2012), especially Chapter 21 Common Practices and "Programming with Style"
• Modern Perl book by chromatic (updated for perl 5.22, 2016), "Style and Efficacy" section
• Perl Best Practices book by TheDamian (2005)
• perl.com article: Ten Essential Development Practices by TheDamian (2005)
• Modern Perl Best Practices O'Reilly video by TheDamian (2014)
• Re^7: Dereferencing in blessed object (Subroutine Prototype References)

Portability:

• perlport (from standard Perl docs)
• Chapter 25. Portable Perl (from "Programming Perl", 3rd edition)
• Re^4: windows perl and paths and Re^2: What is the meaning of this line in Perl on linux? (use forward slashes in file paths)
• "Portability" section at On Coding Standards and Code Reviews
• Re: Threads or no Threads (Threading, Forking, Signals, Event Loop and Concurrency References) (examples of killing external long-running commands portably on Unix and Windows)
• How to portably stop processes? by haj

Related PM Nodes:

• On Coding Standards and Code Reviews
• Why Create Coding Standards and Perform Code Reviews?
• On Interfaces and APIs
• Writing Solid CPAN Modules
• Effective Automated Testing

• The Boy Scout Rule
• Re: Some Help for a Report About Perl (Readability vs Maintainability References)
• Two Different Languages: Two Similar Books (PBP and CCS)
• Re: Meaning of "Clean" Perl code

• Re: Strategies for maintenance of horrible code? (Legacy Code References) (long list of references on dealing with legacy code)
• Re^3: Common subs and Global Variables (Global Variables References)

• My coding guidelines (2002) by Abigail-II
• Perl Style Guides for Large Projects (2002) by da
• IYHO, what do you consider good code? (2003) by stonecolddevin
• José's Guide for creating Perl modules (2005) by cog
• Perl Best Practices for naming variables (2005) by creamygoodness

• On maintaining old code and the battle of styles... (2002) by vladb - I found my coding style and taste conflicting with that of the original author; if making changes, should I conform to existing style or use my own preferred style?
• Convincing management for OO (2017) by pwagyi - scripts written in procedural/shell scripting style; lots of duplicates. How can I convince management to adopt OO/Moose?

• Seeking Best Practices - does your company follow a standard? (2010) by meraxes - seeking to create our own standards guide for our Perl code. Does your company have a coding standard/best practices list for Perl?
• Re: Seeking Best Practices - does your company follow a standard? (2010) - my reply
• Re: Seeking Best Practices - does your company follow a standard? (2010) - ... Jenda's reply :-)

• The problem of documenting complex modules. (2015) by BrowserUk
• (How) Do you document/test your private subroutines? (2018) by stevieb
• Code style question (2021) by AlexP
• Perl tools for making code better (2021) by Leitz
• Re^2: How to test for empty hash? (2021) by scareduck
• On comments (2010) by pemungkah

• 20 most important Perl Best Practices by greengaroo (2012)
• 20 tips to avoid pitfalls while Programming Perl by greengaroo (2012) - follow-up node

• Re^2: [RFC] Review of module code and POD (2021) by hippo (Spaces vs Tabs - longer version)
• Re^4: [RFC] Review of module code and POD (tab) (2021) by LanX (Spaces vs Tabs - shorter version)
• Tabs vs Spaces lets give this a go (2006) by EvanCarroll
• Spaces vs Tabs (2017) by Tanktalus

• Re^2: flower box comments and Re: [RFC] Review of module code and POD (Doco) (2021) by me (POD vs comments)
• Re: Big cache (my top ten software development practices) (2022) by me
• How has your coding style changed over the years? (2022) by stevieb
• Conditional initialization of my-variables (2023) by muthm
• How Critical is Critic? (2023) by Bod

• Re^3: 5.40 released (2024) by cavac

• Re: New Discovery!!! (sub call without parentheses) - Coding Style (always use parens when calling user-defined subroutines and methods; built-in functions are typically called without parens)
• Re^15: What esteemed monks think about changes necessary/desirable in Perl 7 outside of OO staff (Use block if not postfix if References)

• Is it correct? (2008) by GrandFather (Does it work correctly? Do you understand it? Would anyone else understand it? Will you understand it in a month's time? Does it strike a good balance between terseness and verbosity? Could you make changes to it without it being likely to break in unforeseen ways? Is it fast enough?)
• Secure Perl Coding Standards (2009) by Binford
• Yet another set of Perl best practices (2012) by salva
• What is YOUR Development Process? (2005) by swiftone

• Perl Best Practices -- 20 years later (2025) by pfaut - Perl::Critic and Perl::Critic::Community discussed in replies

FindBin:

• FindBin is broken (RE: How do I get the full path to the script executing?) by tye (2000)
• absolute pathname by maletin (2008) - with response from me corrected by ikegami
• Re: use lib "." by philipbailey in response to Bod (2023) - kcott noted FindBin Known Issues
• Re^2: use lib "." by ikegami - suggests using $RealBin instead of $Bin due to symbolic link bug
• FindBin listed in Perl::Critic discouraged modules ... see also Perl::Critic::Community

From CPAN:

• Perl::Critic
• Perl::Critic::Community
• Perl::Critic::Policy::Community::DiscouragedModules
• Test::Perl::Critic
• Perl::Tidy
• Release::Checklist
• Devel::Cover
• Devel::NYTProf
• Task::Kensho - a list of recommended modules for various tasks, sponsored by the Enlightened Perl Organisation

Blogs:

• Laufey Jarson PBP blog - blog series in 2014/2015 where the author worked through PBP recommendations

Some classic quotes from famous programmers:

• on Data Structures vs Code
• on Code Optimization
• on Debuggers (older version with less detail: on Debuggers)

• Re: Allowing regex entries in web form to search database: Risks or gotchas? by dave_the_m ("Perl's regex engine has evolved over 30+ years; it's huge and crusty, with large chunks nobody quite understands any more")

Some external links:

• Juerd's Perl style guide
• In Defense of Coding Standards by Kirrily "Skud" Robert (2000)
• Dominus article: Program Repair Shop and Red Flags by MJD (2000)
• Dominus article: Red Flags Return by MJD (2000)
• Perl Style Guide by AlexP aka AlexP007 on github (2021)

Old broken links:

• Alias Perl coding guidelines (broken link)
• p5ee portability coding guidelines (broken link)

See Also

• Re: Some Help for a Report About Perl (Readability vs Maintainability References)
• Re: So what is your Perl book "Trilogy" anyway? (Perl Book References)

Note: this node was updated with new references long after originally written.

[adamk]

I should note that my guide in that list is specifically and only intended for large scale Perl Object Oriented development.

Many of it's points may be incorrect or not relevant for smaller projects, or projects that are not OO.