Keep your mouth shut. No-one is dumb; they had a good reason to do it a dumb way. Find the root cause and fix it. That root cause is never your colleague.
After 6 weeks and before 12 weeks, you should have a project that you're championing. Sounds like the testcase automation is a good one for you. Demonstrate how you're a win for the company.
Keep your mouth shut. You have no idea what the political landscape is - you don't want to step on a landmine.
The first guy who talks to you is desperate for friends. Don't be his ally.
Read a random chapter from the Camel this weekend, to get into the mood.
In general, if you think something isn't in Perl, try it out, because it usually is. :-)
"What is the sound of Perl? Is it not the sound of a wall that people have stopped banging their heads against?"
Snippets of code should be wrapped in
<code> tags not<pre> tags. In fact, <pre>
tags should generally be avoided. If they must
be used, extreme care should be
taken to ensure that their contents do not
have long lines (<70 chars), in order to prevent
horizontal scrolling (and possible janitor
intervention).