Perl Best Practices
by Damian Conway · first published 2005
52% recommend43% neutral5% critical
Why HN recommends it
Coding guidelines for writing readable, consistent, maintainable Perl, credited with taming team codebases. Suits newcomers and professional Perl programmers, and its principles carry over to other languages.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
Affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
Related books
2011–2022Perl Medic
Peter J. Scott
Recommended by 3 · mentioned by 33 recommend · 3 mention3 recommend · 33 recommend
2007–2026Higher-Order Perl
Mark Jason Dominus
Recommended by 74 · mentioned by 9174 recommend · 91 mention74 recommend · 9174 recommend
2007–2026Programming Perl
Larry Wall, Tom Christiansen, Jon Orwant, Christiansen
Recommended by 90 · mentioned by 21490 recommend · 214 mention90 recommend · 21490 recommend
2014–2022Mastering Perl
brian d foy
Recommended by 2 · mentioned by 42 recommend · 4 mention2 recommend · 42 recommend
Perl Medic
Scott, Peter
Recommended by 4 · mentioned by 44 recommend · 4 mention4 recommend · 44 recommend
2011–2024Perl Cookbook
Tom Christiansen, Nathan Torkington
Recommended by 2 · mentioned by 52 recommend · 5 mention2 recommend · 52 recommend
2008–2022Mastering algorithms with Perl
Jon Orwant
Recommended by 4 · mentioned by 64 recommend · 6 mention4 recommend · 64 recommend
2008–2022Beginning Perl
Curtis Poe
Recommended by 6 · mentioned by 116 recommend · 11 mention6 recommend · 116 recommend
…other people's code is one of the main things that kept me in the past from using Perl on text processing projects. The problem of collaborating in Perl was lessened a lot by adhering to Damian Conway's Perl Best Practices. Is there anything similar for Ruby?
on “Ruby 3.0 Preview 1” ↗…around the corner.... in fact the opposite there are lots of cools things happening right now in Perl5 world (see Moose, MooseX::Declare, etc). So perhaps you should upgrade your Camel book or look at "Perl Best Practices" by Damian Conway. Also keep an eye on http://www.modernperlbooks.com As for Perl6/Rakudo... no need to wait its already here! Clearly its still "beta" but that shouldn't stop you downloading and playing…
on “Parrot VM v1.0.0 released” ↗…defend Perl against those who dismiss it out of hand. After using it an Amazon, I've seen firsthand how productive one can be with the language; and, if you're careful (following, e.g., the guidelines in "Perl Best Practices" by Conway) it's very possible to write maintainable code as well.
on “Perl is 25 years old today” ↗>> [Perl is unmaintainable] You need coding standards for all languages. Most (afaik) Perl shops use Conway's "Perl Best Practices" with some local changes. Go read "Modern Perl" etc. Are you not aware of those developments? PBP isn't exactly new. I don't think there are references of these problems while following good practices?…
on “In Praise of Perl 5” ↗…whitespace - what great madness is this??? Anyway, yes, mod_perl ran the Web for about a decade in the early 2000s and I built and maintained huge websites which were all Perl on the back end. BTW the book "Perl Best Practices" by Damian Conway [0] is the best general programming book I have ever read. Every software engineer should read it no matter what language they program in. So much good advice which applies to pretty…
on “Perl code that is syntactically correct only on Fridays” ↗I would also add "Perl Best Practices" by Damian Conway to that must-read Perl list.
on “"Higher-Order Perl" available for free download” ↗…highest recommendation: http://modernperlbooks.com/books/modern_perl_2016/index.html I've mentioned it before, but reading this book and applying its concepts (along with judicial use Damian Conway's Perl Best Practices) changed my view of Perl from "well, I guess I'll use it since it's here," to "I really enjoy using Perl". Mark Jason Dominus's Higher-Order Perl was another enjoyable read, for its advice on using Perl…
on “Mining my mailbox for top email service providers” ↗…this and it is a major complaint for everyone who has had to deal with someone else's abomination of a solution. Thus, it is common knowledge for Perl users to familiarize themselves with Conway's book 'Perl Best Practices' in order to a avoid causing grief for both your peers and antecessors.
on “We need less powerful languages (2015)” ↗Yes, it's a great language for this application. Make sure you read Damian Conway's book "Perl Best Practices" as a guideline for crafting consistent and readable code. People's biggest gripes about this language generally revolve around poorly written code that is hard to read. Also, when writing regexes it…
on “Why Perl?” ↗…done. There are a few pitfalls, such as list flattening, but in my experience, once you are aware of them, they are not hard to avoid. If you are new to Perl, I highly recommend reading Damien Conway's Perl Best Practices. Even if you end up not picking up all the suggestions, it is worth thinking about them and the problems they try to address.
on “Perl 5.38 Released” ↗Check out "Perl Best Practices" by Damien Conway, and the more recent "Modern Perl" by Chromatic. Both can be had as paperbacks, and I think both are also available free on online.
on “Perl's decline was cultural” ↗I'll go further. Ignore the Perl specific bits and Conway's "Perl Best Practices" is one of the best general programming books ever written. It has so many great pieces of advice that apply to any programming task, everything from naming variables, to testing, error handling, code…
on “Perl's decline was cultural” ↗…somewhat "new" sysadmin/coder back in the early 2000s, those blue O'Reilly books were like a business card, comfort blanket, and encyclopedia all in one. I'd add "Mastering Regular Expressions" and maybe "Perl Best Practices". Oh and definitely "The Perl Cookbook", because it mirrored the way I learn best; from needing to do "a thing" and finding an example that mostly fits what I need.
on “Perl Turns 34 Today” ↗…all fail at that most of the time). Whatever your language of choice is, find the resources that cover good coding practices, and begin making use of them. I work in Perl, and the definitive work is Perl Best Practices (and perlstyle covers a few bits and pieces)...there may not be such a definitive work in your preferred language, but I'm sure there's something. JavaScript has Crockford's new book which, based on…
on “Ask YC: What do you do when a small project keeps getting larger?” ↗I've read Perl Best Practices. Good book. I don't agree with every single one (the deep ?: structures in particular) but everything in there is very sane. I've also found that with http://perldoc.perl.org, I don't have to refer…
on “Parrot VM v1.0.0 released” ↗