I've found the thing that freaked me (and most people) out the most about perl are things that once you know how they're used, they have power that no other language can really compare to...

1. $_ and other hidden variables. These hidden functional variables that just get set at seemingly random times, is freaky. another command that has "implied variables" is "sort" which I always end up looking up, if I have to do anything more complex than use the <=> operator.

2. Sigils and Barewords... they just feel like a bother to most people, who want to know if a variable is an int or a string... it takes a while to understand that context gives type. Whenever I switch between C and Perl I end up dropping sigils by accident, only to find barewords really freak out Perl. Then again, I find pointer notation in C++ is really annoying--especially the precedence required for casting, though in variable declaration the * placement appears all over the place. Perl makes that stuff much easier.

3. Random arbitrary keyword variables like exporter, ISA and all the qw(), and some modules/namespace dereferences is a real pain, but this is mostly because I first learned perl before they were really prevalent... and now that I'm trying to use strict, I find the complaints about my use of globals to be annoying. :) Objects is another one of those things that juggling terms is kinda tough.

4. Pod format... sigh... I know I should learn it... but honestly...

Ironically the regex was what really drew me to Perl, because I learned them in a Unix class before Perl was really known to anyone at my university. And I fell in love with regex captures, from the beginning. THat feature alone has made me a loyalist for life. :) --Ray