Re^3: Some suggestions on coding style - a chance to critique

[Aristotle]

Dump the "&" in front of subroutine calls.

1. Using & disables a function's prototype.
2. If you don't pass any parameters to a function, but call it using &, it will receive your current @_ as its parameters. This can lead to very hard to spot errors.

Is it just that I should use the hash in my code as opposed to assigning the hash values to a variable and then using the variable instead?

Indeed. Why assign to a hash first when you're going to put it into a variable afterwards? Using a hash also is usually cleaner, since it provides an own little name space for the variables in question; it keeps together what belongs together, and keeps them from littering the global namespace.

What exactly does the $|=1 do?

It disables buffering for the currently selected filehandle (which would usually be STDOUT). See perlvar.

Makeshifts last the longest.

[myocom]

For a more elaborate discussion of & vs. non-& sub calls, check the replies that followed from one of my early posts, A question of style. Notably, tye's excellent post here.
"One word of warning: if you meet a bunch of Perl programmers on the bus or something, don't look them in the eye. They've been known to try to convert the young into Perl monks." - Frank Willison