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Perl Best Practices View Larger Image | Damian Conway
O'Reilly Media, Paperback, Published July 2005, 517 pages, ISBN 0596001738 | List Price: $39.95
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Read an excerpt:
Chapter 9: Subroutines
Excerpt provided courtesy of O'Reilly and Associates.
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Perl Best Practices offers a collection of 256 guidelines on the art of coding
to help you write better Perl code--in fact, the best Perl code you possibly can.
The guidelines cover code layout, naming conventions, choice of data and control
structures, program decomposition, interface design and implementation, modularity,
object orientation, error handling, testing, and debugging.
Many programmers code by instinct, relying on convenient habits or a "style"
they picked up early on. They aren't conscious of all the choices they make, like
how they format their source, the names they use for variables, or the kinds of
loops they use. They're focused entirely on problems they're solving, solutions
they're creating, and algorithms they're implementing. So they write code in the
way that seems natural, that happens intuitively, and that feels good.
But if you're serious about your profession, intuition isn't enough. Perl Best
Practices author Damian Conway explains that rules, conventions, standards, and
practices not only help programmers communicate and coordinate with one another,
they also provide a reliable framework for thinking about problems, and a common
language for expressing solutions. This is especially critical in Perl, because
the language is designed to offer many ways to accomplish the same task, and consequently
it supports many incompatible dialects.
With a good dose of Aussie humor, Dr. Conway (familiar to many in the Perl community)
offers 256 guidelines on the art of coding to help you write better Perl code--in
fact, the best Perl code you possibly can. The guidelines cover code layout, naming
conventions, choice of data and control structures, program decomposition, interface
design and implementation, modularity, object orientation, error handling, testing,
and debugging.
They're designed to work together to produce code that is clear, robust, efficient,
maintainable, and concise, but Dr. Conway doesn't pretend that this is the one
true universal and unequivocal set of best practices. Instead, Perl Best Practices
offers coherent and widely applicable suggestions based on real-world experience
of how code is actually written, rather than on someone's ivory-tower theories
on how software ought to be created.
Most of all, Perl Best Practices offers guidelines that actually work, and that
many developers around the world are already using. Much like Perl itself, these
guidelines are about helping you to get your job done, without getting in the
way.
Praise for Perl Best Practices from Perl community members:
"As a manager of a large Perl project, I'd ensure that every member of
my team has a copy of Perl Best Practices on their desk, and use it as the basis
for an in-house style guide." -- Randal Schwartz
"There are no more excuses for writing bad Perl programs. All levels of
Perl programmer will be more productive after reading this book." -- Peter
Scott
"Perl Best Practices will be the next big important book in the evolution
of Perl. The ideas and practices Damian lays down will help bring Perl out from
under the embarrassing heading of "scripting languages". Many of us
have known Perl is a real programming language, worthy of all the tasks normally
delegated to Java and C++. With Perl Best Practices, Damian shows specifically
how and why, so everyone else can see, too." -- Andy Lester
"Damian's done what many thought impossible: show how to build large, maintainable
Perl applications, while still letting Perl be the powerful, expressive language
that programmers have loved for years." -- Bill Odom
"Finally, a means to bring lasting order to the process and product of
real Perl development teams." -- Andrew Sundstrom
"Perl Best Practices provides a valuable education in how to write robust,
maintainable Perl, and is a definitive citation source when coaching other programmers."
-- Bennett Todd
"I've been teaching Perl for years, and find the same question keeps being
asked: Where can I find a reference for writing reusable, maintainable Perl
code? Finally I have a decent answer." -- Paul Fenwick
"At last a well researched, well thought-out, comprehensive guide to
Perl style. Instead of each of us developing our own, we can learn good practices
from one of Perl's most prolific and experienced authors. I recommend this book
to anyone who prefers getting on with the job rather than going back and fixing
errors caused by syntax and poor style issues." -- Jacinta Richardson
"If you care about programming in any language read this book. Even if
you don't intend to follow all of the practices, thinking through your style
will improve it." -- Steven Lembark
"The Perl community's best author is back with another outstanding book.
There has never been a comprehensive reference on high quality Perl coding and
style until Perl Best Practices. This book fills a large gap in every Perl bookshelf."
-- Uri Guttman
About the Author
Dr. Damian Conway is a Senior Lecturer in Computer Science and Software Engineering
at Monash University (Melbourne, Australia), where he teaches object-oriented
software engineering. He is an effective teacher, an accomplished writer, and
the author of several popular Perl modules. He is also a semi-regular contributor
to the Perl Journal. In 1998 he was the winner of the Larry Wall Award for Practical
Utility for two modules (Getopt::Declare and Lingua::EN::Inflect) and in 1999
he won his second "Larry" for his Coy.pm haiku-generation module.
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