Item 4. Understand what sigils are telling you

Sigils are those funny characters you see at the fronts of Perl variable names and in dereferencing, and are often the source of people’s confusion about Perl syntax. Programmers confuse themselves because they guess at what sigils tell them, read incorrect guesses about them on mailing lists, or have learned Perl from a tarot-card reader. People are afraid of them when, in reality, sigils are their best friends.

The sigil is only very loosely related to the variable type itself. In fact, you don’t even need to have a variable. Don’t think of them as variable type indicators at all.