Slash Style Guide: Style 3 Operators as logic shortcuts are fine $value = $foo || $bar; open($fhandle, $filename) or &warn("Can't open file $file. $!"); but don't use and instead of if where if is clearer: foo($bar) and baz($buz); # wrong baz($buz) if foo($bar); # right compound statements: put the primary action first: open(FILE, $fh) or &error ($!); # right &error($!) unless open(FILE, $fh); # wrong use here-docs instead of repeated print statements <<especially since HTML does not display repeated whitespace>> print <<EOT; This is a whole bunch of text. I like it. I don't need to worry about messing with lots of print statements and lining them up. EOT