Perl Best Practices

Appendix A. Essential Perl Best Practices

Ten Essential Development Practices

1. Design the module's interface first.

   [Chapter 17: Interfaces]

2. Write the test cases before the code.

   [Chapter 18: Test Cases]

3. Create standard POD templates for modules and applications.

   [Chapter 7: Boilerplates]

4. Use a revision control system.

   [Chapter 19: Revision Control]

5. Create consistent command-line and configuration interfaces.

   [Chapter 14: Command-Line Structure, Chapter 19: Configuration Files]

6. Agree upon a coherent layout style and automate it with perltidy.

   [Chapter 2: Automated Layout]

7. Code in commented paragraphs.

   [Chapter 2: Chunking]

8. Throw exceptions instead of returning special values or setting flags.

   [Chapter 13: Exceptions]

9. Add new test cases before you start debugging.

   [Chapter 18: Debugging and Testing]

10. Don't optimize code—benchmark it.

    [Chapter 19: Benchmarking]

Ten Essential Coding Practices

1. Always use strict and use warnings.

   [Chapter 18: Strictures, Warnings]

2. Use grammatical templates when forming identifiers.

   [Chapter 3: Identifiers, Booleans, Reference Variables, Arrays and Hashes]

3. Use lexical variables, not package variables.

   [Chapter 5: Lexical Variables]

4. Label every loop that is exited explicitly, and every next, last, or redo.

   [Chapter 6: Loop Labels]

5. Don't use bareword filehandles; use indirect filehandles.

   [Chapter 10: Filehandles, Indirect Filehandles]

6. In a subroutine, always unpack @_ first, using a hash of named arguments if there are more than three parameters.

   [Chapter 9: Argument Lists, Named Arguments ...