In Perl, you can pass only one kind of argument to a subroutine: a scalar. To pass any other kind of argument, you need to convert it to a scalar. You do that by passing a reference to it. A reference to anything is a scalar. If you're a C programmer you can think of a reference as a pointer (sort of).
... which I found because I, unlike the OP, happen to remember that the thing-which-is-sort-of-like-a-pointer-only-not-really in Perl is called a reference.
So let me help the original author: What he meant to say is that "Perl has things that remind me of pointers, but have a different name, and that aren't exactly pointers, but are nearly as confusing as real pointers, especially to someone who just wants to put up a simple web page in five minutes."
In Perl, you can pass only one kind of argument to a subroutine: a scalar. To pass any other kind of argument, you need to convert it to a scalar. You do that by passing a reference to it. A reference to anything is a scalar. If you're a C programmer you can think of a reference as a pointer (sort of).
That's from
http://www.troubleshooters.com/codecorn/littperl/perlsub.htm
... which I found because I, unlike the OP, happen to remember that the thing-which-is-sort-of-like-a-pointer-only-not-really in Perl is called a reference.
So let me help the original author: What he meant to say is that "Perl has things that remind me of pointers, but have a different name, and that aren't exactly pointers, but are nearly as confusing as real pointers, especially to someone who just wants to put up a simple web page in five minutes."