use strict;
use warnings;

my @array = (1 .. 8);
my @other;

while (@array) {
    push @other, @array[-1, 0, 1, -2];
    splice @array, 0, 2;
    splice @array, -2, 2;
}

print "@other";

##</code><code>##

use strict;
use warnings;

my @array = (1 .. 8);
my @other;

push @other, @array[-$_ * 2 - 1, $_ * 2, $_ * 2 + 1, -$_ * 2 -2]
    for 0 .. $#array / 4;

print "@other";