By Tom Christiansen Style can easily become a religious issue. What I am about to tell you is mostly my opinion. It includes both general philosophy and concrete tips. I do not expect all of you to agree with me all the time. Choose a style and stick with it.
Consistency is critical.
Fall not into the folly of avoiding certain Perl idioms for fear that someone who maintains your Perl code won't understand it because they don't know Perl. That person shouldn't be maintaining a language they don't understand. You don't write your English so that someone who only speaks French or German can understand you, or use Latin letters when writing Greek. Now throw it out. Always rewrite your code from scratch, preferably twice .