.. and a snazzy IDE

Well, I'll pick up on one thing mentioned here .. the snazzy IDE is very handy when you're still learning the language and are writing programs one line at a time. I consider myself more advanced than that, and write programs several paragraphs at a time. If I have a syntax error, it's because I mis-typed something, and not because I don't know how map works, for example.

I'm quite happy (and not the least bit ashamed) to use the Perl debugger to step through some of my programs (an installer that's over 2000 lines comes to mind) to make absolutely sure the variables contain what I think they should contain, and that the program flow is what I thought it should be.

It's the same approach I used to write rock solid C code for many years -- compile and lint to get absolutely all of the warnings out, then step through the code in the debugger to make 100% sure the code's doing what I expect.

For run-time debugging, I use Log::Log4perl -- this tool will also confirm that my code is doing what I expect it is doing, once the typos have been dealt with.

What is 'mission critical' anyway? Can something be earning the company money, yet not be categorized as 'mission critical'? I've got lots of Perl in my family of a dozen or so servers; if they stop working, my employer's infrastructure stops. People's lives don't depend on it, but certainly the company's financial life depends on it.

I think Perl plays a larger part in running critical servers than people realize, but because it doesn't come with an endless supply of well-coiffed salespeople with lovely shiny briefcases, beautiful suits, an avalanche of product literature and soothing MarketSpeak, Perl lives under the radar for a lot of people.