While convenience in porting code might be a factor to take into consideration, I have to agree that I do not think it a strong enough reason to change the current syntax of Perl. Particularly, I have trouble with the attempt to justify such a change so that Perl will be more compatible with products from a company that is trying to destroy Perl. It is true that implementing dot notation will also make Perl more compatible with other languages, but when one is porting code, there are always things that need to be changed. If we make Perl so much like other languages that it becomes difficult to distinguish them, then what is the argument for having different languages anyway?

Another consideration is that this will make backwards compatibility with earlier perls troublesome. I personally dislike anything that prevents backwards compatibility. When a change becomes necessary that creates problems with backwards compatibility, it is my opinion that the changes necessary should be relatively trivial. The concatenation operator is not, IMO, such a trivial change.

I say, let's keep Perl the unique language that it is. Particularly if, in doing so, we can avoid the appearance of pandering to those who would destroy it.

Update: per jepri's remarks - I am glad that there will be a compat mechanism; that certainly resolves most of my concerns about it. And, I have to agree that making Perl more accessible to the greater programming community is a good thing ... still ...

($perl{characteristics} eq 'unique') ? $perl{charm}++ : $perl{charm}+=
+0;
[download]

Still IMO, of course.