These small differences in syntax are what originally made perl4 so damn easy for anyone to pick up. HTML and Perl allowed everyone and their kid brother to build a zillion web sites in several years, ActiveState did not. It's actually a tiny issue that's only annoying because it seems so bass-ackwards to me. If I liked VisualBasic I'd be a senior VB developer by now, and I suspect you would too. Who's clamoring for VisualPerl?? Buehler? Buehler? Anyone? This is not a multi-part message in MIME format.