This was kinda cute, even though I don't completely
understand the deal with DUMMYMODE (in the BOFH mindset,
*all* users are dummies, so that should be a design
assumption rather than a switch :)). I do have
a few suggestions for you:
while (<>) {
if ($_ eq /yes/ or /y.*/) {
print "\n$word1 $word2 $word3 $word4\n";
exit;
} else {
exit;
}
}
Your regex has a little problem. It will match 'y' anywhere
in the input, rather than at the beginning of the input
string which I think is what you want. Use the ^ assertion
to match at the beginning of the string. Also, if you
have verified that the user has started his answer with 'y'
you don't really need to check explicitly for the string 'yes'.
See also the informative nodes
Death to Dot Star!
and
Do not use diamond for STDIN.
Here's a less-cluttered alternative to your while loop block:
my $ans = <STDIN>;
print "\n$word1 $word2 $word3 $word4\n" if ($ans =~ /^y/);
or even:
print "\n$word1 $word2 $word3 $word4\n" if (($ans = <STDIN>) =~ /^y/);