I do most of my perl coding using CPerl mode for Xemacs, and although it is very good at spotting syntax it is often horribly wrong, especially when odd quoting characters or pod is brought into the equation. eval is even worse. I'd advise anyone even thinking of trying to parse perl to look at what can be achieved, and then either improving that (to the benefit of everyone) or just to give up.

I do sometimes find myself chosing a particular way of coding over another (possibly better) way because the second breaks the pretty printing, and I want others using the same editor to be able to read the code I write.