One of the most popular events of the summer Olympics is the men's 100 meter sprint, an event that has appeared at every Olympics since the original at Athens. The competitors are often fiery tempered, and the victors declared among the fastest men on Earth. The millions who watch the 100 meter are captured, ultimately, by some 10 seconds worth of action. Actually, 9.79 seconds, considering Maurcie Greene's current world record. But what would Mr. Greene say if we told him that a Perl subroutine can split and sort a sentence into an alphabetically ordered list of letters 98,253 times in that same 9.79 seconds? What do you have to say for yourself now, Mr. Fast Pants? Well, he'd most likely pummel our soft and fleshy behinds, and those of anyone who knows this much about Perl. But it's still true. And we know it's true because of the Benchmark module — our handy Perl stopwatch with which we can time, optimize, and slim down on code. I think Mr. Greene would appreciate that. After the pummeling | 
