This node in no way means that I claim to be an expert on Perl. I hardly consider myself at an intermediate level (I'm still making my way through the Alpaca!). These are just some of the most common ways I've managed to shoot myself in the foot. I thought I would share them here in the hope that they would benefit others and in the hope that I may receive enlightenment from other, more experienced monks on how to better handle these issues. Most of them have to do with regex (go figure!). Here they are in no particular order:

EDIT: Made some changes to the proposed solutions above according to some keen insights from JavaFan and Jenda. Thank you for your constructive criticism.