when I try the our approach I get warnings and errors: use of reserved word our depricated at line.... Variable $date is not imported at framework line.. Global symbol $date requires explicit package name at ... when I try the OO approach, I get the following error: framework.pl did not return a true value at test.pl line 2. one thing I should mention that may make a difference is that I am not putting any of my files in the perl lib path. (and I hope very much to avoid doing this as the setup for the test is already complex enough without having to do this)