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in reply to Re: Perl best practices fanatism
in thread Perl best practices fanatism

I think PBP is a great starting point if you don't want to do any thinking.
actually this book made me think. it says clearly that the "rules" are just suggestions but that you should think about them and whether you follow them or not, you should think about why.

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Re^3: Perl best practices fanatism
by sh1tn (Priest) on Dec 09, 2007 at 17:56 UTC
    The book looks like the most prominent Java books - do this, do that. The main question IMHO is why and not how.


      I'm wondering if we actually read the same book. While there are many points where I decided not to follow PBP advices (e.g. Contextual::Return seems too clever dark magic IMHO), I always found that TheDamian clearly explained the why under the suggestion. Otherwise, I think that his 256 suggestions would have fit into some 20 pages, more or less.

      Flavio
      perl -ple'$_=reverse' <<<ti.xittelop@oivalf

      Io ho capito... ma tu che hai detto?
        I'm glad you liked the book. I just don't like the army style.


      That's why I originally avoided the book, my opinion based only on the title. I later picked it up based on monk recommendations, and it turned out to be much better than I expected.

      It wasn't do this, do that; It was "most do this, here's why. This is contentious, and some people do that, it's important to make a choice and be consistent." I don't follow everything in PBP, but I learned a fair amount from it and it make me examine my own practices.

      But isn't that a lot of the actual value of this book? That it does indeed present the arguments why something should be done in a particular way? And that these arguments allow you to check if they do apply to your own problems.