Re^2: counting number of occurrences of words in a file

[derpp]

Thank you! Using some of your suggestions and the suggestions of the guy above, I somehow managed to fix my problem. I don't think it was the capitalization part that was part of the problem, though. It was more because of my split and a few other problems, like bad placement.

In answer to your question about why I don't use strict, there is none. I just don't like it. Most of my stuff is casual programming, since I am a mere beginner and I prefer to add it in after I have finished and tested my program.

[toolic]

why I don't use strict, there is none. I just don't like it.

Just do it. In most cases, all it means is that you have to type only 3 extra characters (m-y-space) before you declare a variable. After you start doing this, it becomes muscle memory.

Don't make me dedicate a poem to you :)

[ssandv]

Most monks "just don't like" helping people who don't use strict. When you ask for advice, and don't take it when it's given, people remember that. Beginners are the ones who generally benefit the most from strict. You are unambiguously making a mistake, and making it harder for people to help you. It's not a matter of taste.

[kennethk]

I would strongly urge you to reconsider your position. strict's greatest benefits in my experience come from catching typos during initial code development, and will help make issues like Variable scoping more clear in your mind. Give Use strict warnings and diagnostics or die a read and see if you don't change your mind. I always use it for any script that's more than a dozen lines.

[ww]

Re use strict;, you said:

"since I am a mere beginner and I prefer to add it in after I have finished and tested my program."

To me, and (I strongly suspect) to many other Monks, this is evidence that you don't understand the purpose or benefits of invoking the pragma.

Rather than an (add-in||nice-to-have||safety valve), strict exists in large measure to help you get your program "right" whilst finishing and testing (and anything else). If you start coding with strict in use, perl will provide valuable information about any errors anytime you look for them.

[graff]

And in case the replies above haven't convinced you... I've been using perl for 15 years; I've been including "use strict" for more than half of that time.

Adding it to my normal habit has made me a better programmer, because it causes me to think about the constraints it imposes while I am writing code (especially the required scope for variables). And as mentioned above, it also makes it easier and quicker to get my code to work as intended, because it catches mistakes that might otherwise be hard to spot.

The only time I don't use it is when I am doing spontaneous one-liners at the shell command line, because in that situation, compactness carries greater value, and the code I need is relatively short and simple (requiring few if any variables). But every script that I store as a file has "use strict" in it.