Part I covered modules specific to the network management part of my job. These are my favorite general-purpose modules.

1. Viewing data structures:
Data::Dumper::Simple
with:
$Data::Dumper::Indent = 1; #JMO
I learned a lot about references using this module, too.

2. Saving myself from the tyranny of Microsoft:
Spreadsheet::ParseExcel automates what would be a daily, very tedious task. (Don’t ask unless you are willing to buy me a beer in order to hear the story behind this.)

3. Automating version control:
CVS::Simple, which I’m in the process of replacing with Git::Wrapper. I’m learning git at the same time, so it’s quite a wild ride.

4. I’m writing tests, try not to faint:
Test::Most and Test::Mockobject

5. Enforcing coding standards:
Perl::Critic

6. Having fun at my co-workers’ expense:
Lingua::Bork. Pass the daily reports through this, and see who’s actually reading them.

7. And of course, DBI. Don’t leave home without it.

Update on some others I mentioned:

Cisco::Reconfig is still intriguing. I’ve encountered a couple of quirks and am trying to figure out if It’s Just Me ™ or they’re actual bugs.

Last time I worked with Net::MAC was v1.2, and I encountered what I thought might be a bug when iterating over an array of mac addresses. I didn’t need it for any heavy lifting (just converting macs to cisco format), so instead of filing a bug report, I stuck with my hand-rolled solution. The problem has been fixed in 1.5.