In my experience, Perl has inherent problems with readability on a line-by-line basis. I don't think that there's anything that can be added to change this - testing would prove a line does certain things but given that a test isn't complete specification, testing couldn't by itself change the readability problem.

Again, Perl would have more justification if Ruby wasn't visible

If someone references a book with author/title, PLEASE at least check a review on the web before commenting.

I was hoping that any answer might be insightful.

(Readability is mostly a function of familiarity. Everything has advantages/disadvantages, if I'd list the problems with Perl, readability wouldn't be there.)

Here is a new comment (with links etc) on "Perl best practices"

http://www.dagolden.com/index.php/199/time-for-second-editio...