I have seen some of my own early code using things like the following :

## stats ? -s ? naaaaa
$size = `ls -l $FILE | awk '{ print $5 }'`; 

## what's opendir() ?
@files = `ls $DIR`;

## And, this is not mine, but i saw it 
#  in some code at work the other day
#  where all logging was like this ...
`echo "Process starting" >> $LOGFILE`;
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"They shall not overcome. Whoever told them that the truth shall set them free was obviously and grossly unfamiliar with federal law."
    -- John Ashcroft