A little disappointed so far

[Brian Quinlan]

> BTW,
> open ($file) || die "Couldn't open $file"
> strikes me as rather readable. And concise.

In Python, just write:
f = open(file)

If there is an exception, an error message will be generated explaining
why the file could not be opened and your script will terminate.

The problem with your Perl code is that it doesn't really help with
problem diagnosis i.e. does the file not exist, is it a directory, do I
not have the necessary permissions, etc.

Cheers,
Brian