A good point, although it seems to work like this on my Fedora machine with this minimal program:

system { "lskdfj" } "lskdfj";
printf "# \$! eq %d, '%s'\n", $!, $!; # prints # $! eq 20, 'Not a dire
+ctory'
[download]

Another minor problem i can think of is the "random" command "lskdfj". It's paranoid thinking, but what if the user happens to have a file called /bin/lskdfj ? Maybe it should be checked with -e or something.

I'd bring it up on perl5-porters, but i am trying to subscribe and not receiving the confirmation email.