my @stuff = (
    {submitted => "01/22/08"},
    {submitted => "01/12/08"},
    {submitted => "04/01/09"},
    {submitted => "10/04/08"},
    {submitted => "01/10/09"},
    {submitted => "12/12/09"},
    {submitted => "01/22/09"}, 
    {submitted => "01/12/09"}, 
    {submitted => "12/30/08"}, 
    {submitted => "12/22/08"}, 
    {submitted => "12/15/08"}, 
    {submitted => "01/05/09"}, 
    {submitted => "01/19/09"}, 
    {submitted => "01/21/09"}       
);

my @sorted =
  map { $_->[0] }
  sort { $b->[1] cmp $a->[1] }
  # map { print "$_->[1]\n"; $_ }  # uncomment for debugging purposes
  map { [$_, join('', (split(/\//, $_->{submitted}))[2,0,1] )] }
  @stuff;


foreach my $res (@sorted) {
  print $res->{submitted}."\n";
}
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See Schwartzian Transform