ikegami: no one has mentioned a system or version where the arguments are evaluated in any order other than left-to-right

My answer to the OP was completely wrong,
which is what I found out after investigating
into the topic.

Thats another case where prejudice brings ill-fated conclusions.
One simple look into perl -MO=Bblock thisprog.pl reveals
the left-to-right sequence

OP (0x824dc78) enter
COP (0x81f30f0) nextstate
SVOP (0x824daa0) const [6] IV (0x8167cdc) 1
PADOP (0x8193748) gvsv  GV (0x816887c) *|
BINOP (0x8189228) sassign
COP (0x824c460) nextstate
OP (0x824ffa8) pushmark
SVOP (0x81892b8) const [7] PV (0x8168804) "first="
PADOP (0x818c5c0) gvsv  GV (0x816887c) *|
SVOP (0x818dc50) const [8] PV (0x8168810) " second="
PADOP (0x824fdb8) gvsv  GV (0x816887c) *|
UNOP (0x824fc80) postinc [4]
SVOP (0x824dc58) const [9] PV (0x81688a0) "\n"
LISTOP (0x824ff80) print
LISTOP (0x824d8e0) leave [1]
[download]

int the perl. Sorry, I was mistaken by the way one
"programs" Perl in C via its interfaces.

Thanks to all people who helped clearing this up.

I will eventually make an addendum to my first post.

Regards

mwa