What are good alternatives to warnings and diagnostics, and how do they compare?

In Perl programming, while using the warnings and diagnostics pragmas is beneficial, there are several alternatives that can aid in debugging and writing more reliable code. Below are some of the notable alternatives:

• Use of Modern::Perl: This enables some of the newer features and makes warnings a default behavior.
• strict pragma: It helps catch potential errors by enforcing strict variable declaration rules.
• Carp module: This provides better warning messages than the default warnings pragma, especially for library authors.
• Devel::Confess: Enhances stack traces in error messages and provides more context for debugging.
• Test::More: Incorporates testing directly in your scripts to ensure that your code behaves as expected.

Each of these alternatives has its own advantages. For example, using strict enables programmers to detect errors related to variables and syntax before runtime. Similarly, Carp can give more informative error messages which can be very helpful during development.