From my point of view, it's not just about bytes or keystrokes, but about command verbalization efficiency and (subjective, of course) elegance. When I command somebody, I don't want to say it twice :). Perl gives you a lot of freedom of choices, allows a lot of "artism", for example in comparison with Python, which is more rigid. And this suggestion is about further development of this Perl's unique nature. Tim Toady likes it.