Yes, what you say about low-level C-like behavior vs. DWIM Perl-like behavior is sensible. But you have to bear in mind that the "default, typical usage" model in Perl is to proceed as if the specifics of various error conditions don't usually matter and you should be able to carry on regardless -- i.e. in the "generic" case you ignore error conditions, and only attend to them (with an extra line or few of code) when you feel a specific need to do so.