For some reason, the United States is the only country on Earth where accidents don't happen – it's always somebody's fault, and you can sue that som… - Erik Naggum

XML is a giant step in no direction at all.

You become a serious programmer by going through a stage where you are fully aware of the degree to which you know the specification, meaning both the explicit and the tacit specification of your language and of your problem. "Hey, it works most of the time" is the very antithesis of a serious programmer, and certain languages can only support code like that.

Part of any serious QA is removing Perl code the same way you go over a dilapidated building you inherit to remove chewing gum and duct tape and fix whatever was kept together for real.