Perl 5 is quite a speedy language. Getting Perl 6 up to Perl 5 speed is impressive. Part of the reason the language looks scary from a distance is it's $sigil

Perl 5 is quite a speedy language. Getting Perl 6 up to Perl 5 speed is impressive. Part of the reason the language looks scary from a distance is it's $sigils, which speed up the interpreter.