It's a bit confusing at first that Perl 6 has different scalar contexts, called "item context".

In generic item context an array returns a capture (think reference) to an array.

But in other item contexts, like boolean ?@array, numeric +@array and string ~@array the array will return different things (for example number of elements, and a string representation).

A scalar value that holds an array capture automatically dereferences, so you can write $ary[0] instead of the cludgy $ary->[0].

I don't know why this should make sigils useless. Sigils serve two purposes: visual distinction, and name disambiguation (%foo is a different variable than @foo).

Automatic dereferencing doesn't impact any of those.

It's like in Perl 5 - you can store everything in a scalar (or scalar ref), but you shouldn't, because it makes your program less readable.

But if you decide to do that in Perl 6, the syntax is nicer ;-)

Update: as a side note the braces after a variable are nothing special or magical in Perl 6, it just calls  method postcircumfix:<[ ]>($invocant:, $argument) on the variable. So it's just natural that it works on a capture as well as on an array.

In reply to Re: [Perl 6] $ and @ - what is it coming to? by moritz
in thread [Perl 6] $ and @ - what is it coming to? by John M. Dlugosz

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