Interesting, I hadn't realized that... This short snippet might illustrate the core issue a bit clearer.

#!/usr/bin/perl -wT
use strict;

my @arr = (7,8,9);

print ",, => " , @arr , "\n";  # two commas
print ",. => " , @arr . "\n";  # comma then dot
print "., => " . @arr , "\n";  # dot then comma
print ".. => " . @arr . "\n";  # two dots

=OUTPUT
,, => 789
,. => 3
., => 3
.. => 3
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-Blake