eval Stinks!

Even if not a huge increase in the code needed for the operation, it's a bunch of magic to remember every time. If you don't do this sort of thing, though, you've got a big opening for horrible error-handling problems.

use Try::Tiny;

my $start = Time::HiRes::time;

return try {
  $self->computation_helper->compute_stuff;
} catch {
  my $error = $_ eq '' ? 'unknown error' : "$_";
  $self->set_last_error( "couldn't get stuff computed: $error" );
  return undef;
} finally {
  my $failed = @_;
  my $end  = Time::HiRes::time;
  warn sprintf "took %f seconds to %s",
    $end - $start,
    $failed ? 'fail' : 'succeed';
};