Try unbuffering your output:

use strict;
$| =1; #unbuffer output

print "Loading . .";
for (1..8) {
  sleep 2;
  print " .";
}
print "\nDone.\n";
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Read all about $| and other special variables in perldoc perlvar or perlvar. HTH

perl -e 'print "How sweet does a rose smell? "; chomp ($n = <STDIN>); 
+$rose = "smells sweet to degree $n"; *other_name = *rose; print "$oth
+er_name\n"'
[download]