title: Why are Perl 5's function prototypes bad?
body: <p>In <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/204467/is-there-a-perl-function-to-turn-a-string-into-a-regexp-to-use-that-string-as-p">another Stack&nbsp;Overflow question</a> <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/users/4727/leon-timmermans">Leon Timmermans</a> asserted:</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>I would advice you not to use prototypes. They have their uses, but not for most cases and definitely not in this one.</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>Why might this be true (or otherwise)? I almost always supply prototypes for my Perl functions, and I've never before seen anyone else say anything bad about using them.</p>