On some OSs that doesn't include hidden files:

$ perl -le 'opendir my $fd, "."; my @files = readdir $fd; closedir $fd
+; print scalar @files'
48
$ perl -le 'my @files = <*>; print scalar @files'
7
$ _
[download]

But including them is not difficult:

$ perl -le 'my @files = (<*>,<.*>); print scalar @files'
48
$ _
[download]

It seems that readdir is faster, though:

use Benchmark qw(:all) ;
cmpthese(20000, {
  readdir => sub { opendir my $fd, "."; my @files = readdir $fd; close
+dir $fd; },
  glob    => sub { my @files = (<*>,<.*>); }
});
__END__
           Rate    glob readdir
glob     3170/s      --    -75%
readdir 12739/s    302%      --
[download]

Update: Of course glob is slower, since in this computer it also sorts the result.