#/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;

my @array = qw(a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z);

my $nbuckets = 3;  # number of buckets to divide @array into
my %bucket;        # @{$bucket{0 .. $nbuckets - 1}} are the buckets

foreach my $n( 0 .. $nbuckets - 1) {
    foreach my $size (1 .. int(0.9999 + @array /($nbuckets - $n))) {
        push @{$bucket{$n}}, shift @array;
    }
}

foreach my $n (0 .. $nbuckets - 1) {
    print "bucket $n: ",
          join(' ', @{$bucket{$n}}), "\n";
}