SPUG: MORE INFO: Array Naming Question

[Chris Wilkes]

> --- "North, Walter" <wnorth at state.mt.us> wrote:
> > 
> > Dan:
> > 
> > >>>>>>>Blinding Flash of Light<<<<<<<<<
> > 
> > Sometimes the obvious is just too
> > obvious.............
> > 
> > Its the key stupid, not the hash name...........
> > 
> > Thank you.
> > 
> > Also Chris Wilkes for the thought on creating my own
> > perl module.  That is definately one I had not
> > thought of.
> > 
> > Perhaps as my skills increase........
On Wed, Feb 04, 2004 at 10:00:58AM -0800, Brian Maddux wrote:
> I would suggest getting the Advanced Perl Programming
> book from O'Reilly. It really helps with hashes,
> references, etc.

Also look into picking up Damian Conway's book "Object Oriented Perl":
   http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1884777791
which is both witty and informative.

What I like to do is look at my code and think "6 months down the road
am I going to remember that $info{name}{date} is the purchase date?" and
the answer is usually no.  Or "If someone else took over this project
can they easily extend what I've done?" -- if all you have are one off
scripts then no.

When you start writing modules you might think that you're doing a lot
of work for little gain.  Why am I writing all these getters and setters
when it took me 2 seconds to think up $info{name}{date}?  Keep reminding
yourself that you *read* code 100x more often then you *write* it.  So
if it takes you an hour to write a good module it will pay off in the
long run as you don't have to keep on remembering what data structures
you were using.

Good luck!

Chris