Here's my attempt at the same problem.

#!/usr/local/bin/perl -w 

use strict;
use POSIX;

my @array = qw/one two three four five six seven eight nine ten/;
my $cols = 3;
my $tabs = 1;

foreach my $value ( @array ) {
    my $foo = ceil( length( $value ) / 8 );
    $tabs = $foo if $tabs < $foo;
}

while ( @array ) {
    for ( 1 .. $cols ) {
        my $slice = shift @array;
        print $slice if defined $slice;    
        print "\t" for 1 .. $tabs;
    }
    print "\n";
}
[download]

-Ben Jacobs