The camel book has this to say:

Since eval traps otherwise-fatal errors, it is useful for determining whether a particular feature (such as a socket or symlink) is implemented. In fact, eval is the way to do all exception handling in Perl.

In other words, ...

   eval {
      do_stuff();
   }
   if (not $@) {
      print "Successful!\n";
   } else
      print "Error: $@\n";
   }
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$;=sub{$/};@;=map{my($a,$b)=($_,$;);$;=sub{$a.$b->()}}
split//,".rekcah lreP rehtona tsuJ";$\=$ ;->();print$/
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