As for maps, don't forget the elegance of a simple for/foreach for aliasing .. often it is more readable if you don't need to capture an array but just need to mangle one.

$_++ for @array;
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Is the same as:

@array = map { $_++ } @array;
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And also this can be occasionally cool:

print for (
   "Henry the eighth I am I am\n",
   "Henry the eighth I am\n",
   "I got married to the window next door\n",
   "She's been married 7 times before\n"
);
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So anyway, map is cool, it has many good places, but often a foreach (even if it is more code) can be just as cool, and often more readable. I'm currently in the process of simplifying a functionally-styled CLI interface to use more foreach and less map, because after going home and coming back in the morning (and not having my Mountain Dew yet), the foreach is easier to read.

But in your original example, yes, map seems to be the trick because the cardinality (err, size) of the list is changing and you don't want to mangle the original.