Because when I'm explaining in class, or in a book, I usually leave the braces around the expression for clarity. Given: 
   $a=\@foo;

[download]
that $a is now a reference to an array and, syntatically, it can be used as a stand-in for an array name. Now knowing this, treat @{$a} as you would @foo and get the same results: 
        @{$a};       # Same as @foo
        ${$a}[1];    # Same as $foo[1]
        @{$a}[0..2]; # Same as @foo[0..2]

[download]
It's just a teaching tool, and I've used it before with great success. And when they're confortable with this you can remove the braces (reminding them of precedence) and when they've got that down pat, show them -> where they get a dereference for free.

In reply to Re: Can you take a slice of an array reference? by clintp
in thread Can you take a slice of an array reference? by princepawn

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.