Having learned Perl syntax as a 2nd language, I still have problems making expressions and statements more concise. For example, in a recent (still developing) script for comparing Active Directory accounts to an employee list, I needed to make a function that would take an employee name (Smith, John), and convert it to the AD nomenclature (JSmith). This is the code I used, and I'm sure it's not as brief or concise as it could be. I was hoping for enlightenment, and how you managed to overcome this hurdle if Perl wasn't your [0]th language. 
for ($i = 0; $i <= $#sortedNames; $i++) {
  @temp = split/,/, $sortedNames[$i][0];
  $temp[1] = reverse $temp[1];
$x = chop($temp[1]);
$toOutput = reverse $temp[0];
$toOutput .= $x;
$output = reverse $toOutput;
print NEWFILE "$output\n";
}

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I would include the rest of the script, but it looks so bad that I wouldn't want to burn your eyes. Any comments are welcome. (Yes, I didn't use strict;. Yes, I should use strict;). This is only part of the script, I could include the rest, though I'd have to 'clean' it up, as it looks far worse than the above snippet.

In reply to Perl 'grammar' by gortok

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