I appreciate your reply. I am not sure if I really am on the Scholars side of the spectrum myself, but I surely love to know how to use my tools appropriately (Googling instead of memorizing everything is efficient). There was an article recently on HN (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1906070) related to "bad" habits in Perl (What about using the safer, clearer three-parameter form of open?) : as you and other expressed it more clearly than I did, this is the Cargo Cult side of programming that bothers me. Also, I was disappointed that most of the comments seemed to fight over stylistic considerations whereas the point of the author was "Just please stop making authoritative claims", e.g. uninformed claims; but don't get me wrong, I clearly noticed that people here actually know quite well their subject, even when they choose the always-use-semi-colon side of this war.