Scalars & sigils in Perl

One $ sigil for every single value, whether it holds a string or a number.

use strict;
use warnings;

# one sigil, one value: strings and numbers share the scalar
my $name  = "perl";
my $year  = 1987;
my $ratio = 0.5;

my $port = "8080";
print "$name arrived in $year\n";
print $port + 1, " is one port up\n";
print "half of $year is ", $year * $ratio, "\n";

my $tag = $name . "-" . $year;
print "tag: $tag\n";

How it works

my declares a lexical scalar; use strict makes the declaration mandatory.
Double-quoted strings interpolate $name and $year right in place.
+ and * treat the numeric string "8080" as a number; . concatenates.

Keywords and builtins used here

my
print
use

The run, in numbers

Lines: 15
Characters to type: 336
Tokens: 68
Three-star pace: 70 tpm

At the three-star pace of 70 tokens a minute, this run takes about 58 seconds.

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Step 1 of 3 in Scalars & sigils, step 1 of 27 in Language basics.