If you had a time machine, which Perl language mis-feature would you expunge from existence?

• Barewords (no Sharon poetry mode :)
• Bareword file handles.
• Two-argument open
• Indirect object notation (see effective perler)
• Formats (see effective perler)
• Old-style subroutine prototypes (see effective perler)
• Postfix if
• unless
• until
• do blocks
• String eval (see Re^3: Create sort function from a text file (string eval vs block eval))
• Change spelling of block eval to try (see last para of Re^3: Create sort function from a text file (string eval vs block eval))
• Lvalue substr
• <...> (i.e. just use the glob function)
• select filehandles (e.g. select((select($fh), $|=1)[0]) vs $fh->autoflush() - see On Interfaces and APIs)
• Calling subroutines with a leading &
• Symbolic references
• Pseudohashes
• C-style for statements
• Make use strict and use warnings the default

There are surely others I've not thought of. Suggestions welcome.

This poll was provoked by two spookily similar replies I happened to make today: Re^2: Organizational Culture (Part VI): Sociology and Re^3: Create sort function from a text file (string eval vs block eval).

Update (much later):

• The impossibility of performing a sound static parse of Perl (BTW this has been fixed in Raku)

See also:

• PPI
• PPR
• Guacamole
• Re: Perl script compressor by haukex

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  In reply to Re: poll ideas quest 2021 by eyepopslikeamosquito
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