I think PBP is a great starting point if you don't want to do any thinking.

There's so much to chew on in one little sentence. I think the odds are slim that a person would even glance at a book like PBP if they don't want to do any thinking. It's not one of those pocket guides that give you a summarized list without so much as a "how do you do." There is no starting point for a person who doesn't want to do any thinking. Well, there is: not thinking. That's also the stopping point.

Of course PBP is not the final word. It does give a lot of guidelines along with a lengthy explanation of why Damian likes each one. I don't follow all of those guidelines. Heck, I don't even think I follow half of them. I chose not to take it as a list of commandments, though. It's just a collection of what Damian likes best.

The book did make me think a lot about why I follow the practices I do and how I could improve on them, though. It seems to me that the book was a good starting point for somebody who wants to do a lot of thinking.

That reminds me. Is there any hope for a second edition of "Effective Perl Programming"? That was a pretty handy book.