Here's one reason why sigils could be considered to suck.
`@array` - array of values.
`$array[1]` - get element 1 of the array.
`$array` - What do you think this does? Why can't we just `@array[1]`?
`@array` - array of values.
`$array[1]` - get element 1 of the array.
`$array` - What do you think this does? Why can't we just `@array[1]`?
There's a lesson here somewhere that most people don't generally want to understand stuff. So stuff that's the least bit different don't tend to go mainstream, things like Haskell have a hard time. Perl was a bit different but just happened to go mainstream anyway, and that probably coloured people's feelings for it, for better and for worse.
'array' is the variable.
'@array' gives me the list in 'array'.
'$array[1]' gives me the scalar ($) value at array[1].
`@array[3..7]` gives me the list (@) of values at array indexes 3-7, inclusive on both sides. (Why does Python use open ended ranges? <facepalm>) (Why is Python's slicing syntax an inflexible loop? <facepalm again>)
`@array[1]`, by the way gives me the list of values at array index 1, which is the same as `$array[1]`
Because of slices. If you look at the complete table, you will never get confused again.
I think it will throw an error if you declared my @array
> Why can't we just `@array[1]`?
Because that could return an array or a hash if you are dealing with structures likes arrays-of-arrays (AoA) or arrays-of-hashes (AoH).
To my naive take, it makes much more sense to only identify high level objects to put them under one category (arrays, AoA, AoH -> @) then consider everything else as "uncertain" and default to $.
Otherwise, you would have to declare AoA and AoH differently (ex: my @@AoA; my @%AoH;) and then the interpreter could see @AoA[1] and %AoH[1] as valid but %AoA[1] and @AoH[1] as invalid.
I could see that as potentially having value to know at a glance what you are dealing with, but it might break many things, and casting to a new object with my %aoh_1 = %{ $AoH[1] } makes more sense.
@array[1] returns a single-element list-like thing. It mostly works, but you get a warning:
https://perldoc.perl.org/perldiag#Scalar-value-@%25s%5B%25s%...