Yeah, Perl is old (but... not really) and considered clunky (but... not really).

And a novice can write some really ugly code in Perl... which gets stuff done and pronto.

There are gazillion of Perl modules on CPAN so there's usually you can find that is similar to what you're trying to do, or can be easily tweaked what you want to do.

And (GASP!!), you can write enterprise worthy code in Perl. (.. no, it's true, I've actually seen it, and currently do it).

A decent code editor (aka Komodo) will make the job much easier but even the lowly notepad++, kate/gedit, vim/emacs, ultraedit/uex will yell at your syntax errors in a supportive yet loving way.

Even the creators of this system are having problems counting months in a 0 based system.

"MONTH NAMES It may be easiest to name each month by its month number. By doing so, we end up with Month 0, Month 1, Month 2, Month 3, Month 4, Month 5, Month 6, Month 7, Month 8, Month 9, Month 10, Month 11, Month 12, and Month 13. In order for this calendar to remain neutral, the use of actual names for months is highly discouraged. "

If the months are zero based, and there are 13 identical months, there should only be months numbered 0-12. Month 13 would actually be the 14th month.

Fer cryin' out loud.

While I do like the added imagery of the new beta, I don't like home much vertical real estate it takes. The classic slashdot fits a whole lotta information in one vertical screen; the new beta design has so much vertical whitespace that I need to scroll down constantly, about twice as much as classic.

Dense is good (... sometimes). I vote for dense (... sometimes).

That's some extremely advanced water vapor there, I'm telling you. Usurping our prized telescope, and now confirmed by researchers. I used to fantasize that clouds looked like aliens... I had no idea they really WERE aliens.

Two guys showing up at a hospital asking for radiation treatments are pretty easy to find.

The UT2009 quantum compensation mod will fix it.