Your explanation is fantastic; referring to \ as "the reference taking operator" really helps. Thanks!

I don't envision a real use for it either, just experimenting.

Update: Below was my experimentation. As mentioned earlier, it proved to be not portable as the references lead to different numbers on different systems. 

use strict;
use warnings;
$/=q{+\//};                # my silly scalar
for(@{[31,60,66,68,73]}){  # magic numbers
   ($-=>$_)=($_=>$!); # set $- to magic number and $_ to empty
    $_.=$/while--$-;  # append silly scalar to $_ <magic number> times
    $_=eval;          # eval it for an eight-digit number...
    s+......$++;      # whose first two digits
    push(@_,$_)       #   are the ASCII for '!', 'A', 'H', 'J', 'P'
}die map{chr}@_[eval join(q{,},3,1,4,2,0)]=>10;   # die with 'JAPH!\n'

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In reply to Re^2: eval'ing strange scalar by hbm
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