Re: How to Identify a Good Perl Programmer

These aren’t authoritative. Just felt like trying my hand since chromatic said a good Perl 5 programmer should know 80%. Woo-woo.

• What do variable sigils indicate in Perl 5?
  • The underlying content. % ➙ hash, @ ➙ array, $ ➙ scalar. The trick perhaps being that a scalar variable can hold just about anything as a reference; from an object to a regular expression.
• What's the difference between accessing an array element with $items[$index] and @items[$index]?
  • The first is right. :) The second is a single item array slice and is deprecated.
• What's the difference between == and eq?
  • Numeric vs stringwise equality comparison in that order. The stringwise operators are spelled with letters; e.g., lt, ge, cmp.
• What do you get if you evaluate a hash in list context?
  • All its elements—in key, value pairs—in whatever order perl thinks they are best kept.
• How do you look up keywords in the Perl documentation?
  • perldoc -f pack… or perldoc.com.
• What is the difference between a function and a method in Perl 5?
  • Well… there isn’t any exactly. A method expects, or needs, the first argument to be a class or object. The calling class or object is passed as the first argument which looks like: Class::Name->method_name($arg) or $object->method_name($arg). This does make the following the same in some cases: method_name($object, $arg).
• When does Perl 5 reclaim the memory used by a variable?
  • When it and all of its referents go out of scope.
• How do you ensure that the default scope of a variable is lexical?
  • Declare it with my.
• How do you load and import symbols from a Perl 5 module?
  • use Module::Name ( $optional, $args )
  or require + import.
• How can you influence the list of directories from which perl attempts to load modules?
  • By altering @INC. There are quite a few ways to do that. The lib pragma and PERL5LIB environment variables being the two most straightforward; well, that and execution directory.
• How do you look up error messages in the Perl 5 documentation? (Award bonus points for knowing how to enable explanations of all error messages encountered.)
  • Um… I’m not sure. perldoc -q error points to perlfaq8. You can use diagnostics to make your warnings and errors much more verbose.
• What happens when you pass an array into a function?
  • It’s available in @_.
• How do you pass one or more distinct arrays into a function?
  • Array references like function(\@one,\@two) or I think you could do it by using a prototype, which is almost always a bad idea.
• What is the difference, on the caller side, between return; and return undef;?
  • The first unrolls by context to an undef scalar or an empty list (). The second, always to undef.
• Where do tests go in a standard CPAN distribution?
  • t/.
• How do you run tests in a standard CPAN distribution?
  • prove -l t/ (and I like the -v as well).
• What command do you use to install new distributions from the CPAN?
  • cpanm, believe it.
• Why would you use the three-argument form of the open builtin?
  • Security, robustness, and quoting.
• How do you detect (and report) errors from system calls such as open? (Award bonus points for knowing how to enable automatic detection and reporting of errors.)
  • They return true on success. use autodie to turn the failures into fatals.
• How do you throw an exception in Perl 5?
  • die, well croak or confess if you please.
• How do you catch an exception in Perl 5?
  • eval {} or maybe use Try::Tiny is the right choice at this point.
• What is the difference between reading a file with for and with while?
  • All at once or one record at a time.
• How do you handle parameters within a method or function in Perl 5?
  • Uh… what? You take them or copy them out of @_.
• What do parentheses around the variable name in my ($value) = @_; mean, and what would happen if you removed them?
  • They keep the list context. Without them you get the size of @_.
• Is new a builtin function/keyword?
  • No.
• How do you read the documentation of a core library? A CPAN module?
  • perldoc Module::Name.
• How do you access only the values of a Perl 5 hash?
  • values %hash.

So… Did I get the part?

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