For my recent projects, I've been using Dist::Zilla and enjoying its very advanced features. The reason I've never used it before? I thought it had a silly name. I still do, in fact, just that I managed to ignore the silliness enough to find out it incorporates some major wins.

Another project I overlooked is KiokuDB. I was looking around for a non-relational/Object-based/Document-based Database (aka NoSQL), and kept overlooking KiokuDB for two reasons; first, KiokuDB is a front-end to several different back-ends, including RDBMS like MySQL and Postgresql, making me unsure whether it …

One of the most common responses to simple, text-book-quality questions on many Perl community outlets is "We are not here to do your homework". It's usually thrown in a swift, abase, manner, as if saying "How DARE you ask us to answer your assignment for you?!", and at times is accompanied by a general comment as to the asker's intelligence, seriousness, effort, capabilities, values, ethics and sexual capabilities. It is also, always, the most incorrect response possible.

One of my first assignment, back when I was a technical supporter, was to "refactor" a Perl script, which turned …