Don't most programming languages have a few idioms that really annoy newcomers? I've been using Perl since the 1990's so when I see something like your example

Don't most programming languages have a few idioms that really annoy newcomers? I've been using Perl since the 1990's so when I see something like your example, my first thought is "oh no, somebody who doesn't know Perl wrote this Perl code!"[0] I recently learned Python and while I think I'm pretty OK at it, I still have WTF moments from time to time. Like: > from datetime import datetime # WTF? and yet standard! I'm often tempted to rant about semantics and documentation culture in Python but then I remember hey, lots of people have similar criticisms of languages I know better, so maybe I should just give it some time. I'm not saying you should have liked Perl, but in the programming landscape of 15 years ago you were passing up one of the most important things powering the Web. [0]: never name two variables of different types the same thing; never use $a as a normal variable because it's sometimes Special.