Where does perl get off wrapping around to the top of the array in a $val = $tiedArray[$i] or if (exists $tiedArray[$i])... if $i happens to be negative?? This behavior is acknowledged here.
If I am doing some kind of subscript computation and my subscript happens to go negative, I want to know about it (by receiving undef) NOW, rather than being given some completely unrelated value from the other end of the array! Fooey!