It's just a completely different model. Scalar context vs list context. @x returning length vs $x[0] accessing the list. It has a logic but it's its own logic.

Not unlike Rust's borrow checker but at least with Rust you know what you're being promised.

> It has a logic but it's its own logic.

Which is covered in the very first section of the course book? Yes it has its own logic. So do lots of programming languages.

How far do we need to take "not reading the doc"? That the very first chapter is too far? People who gave up on perl because of that... really would not have survived the rest of the course anyway?

And at least with Rust, even if you don't love it, you can appreciate that there's a compelling reason for it to be that way. I wrote a lot of Perl, but never reached the aha moment where I understand why its sigils were so deliberately odd.