I'd vote for using /\t/ as it is much more self-documenting. Seeing split "\t" makes me wonder what split '\t' does. Well, all of these are the same (they split on tab):

    split /\t/
    split "\t"
    split '\t'
    split "\\t"
    split '\\t'
    split "\\\t"
[download]

while all of these are the same (they split on backslash followed by "t"):

    split /\\t/
    split "\\\\t"
    split '\\\\t'
    split '\\\t'
[download]

Did that surprise you? I can certainly seeing that surprising a non-perfect Perl coder who takes over maintanence of your code.

I think split $string would be more DWIM if it translated into split /\Q$string\E/, which it doesn't. So I think you should avoid using it as it makes your code harder to maintain. (Except for the special case of split " ", of course.)

        - tye (but my friends call me "Tye")