I once accidentally piped an SSL certificate into Perl and got 40+ warnings before it realised it wasn't Perl. I'm not joking.

That's why Larry Wall said he'll be certified before Perl is (when asked about the prospect of standardizing the language).

It's one of his well-known quotes.

https://quotefancy.com/quote/1497280/Larry-Wall-I-think-I-m-...

I posted a link to many of his quotes:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43287809

Now try piping Perl into itself. #@$%&^*!

A homopipic / homeopathic language?

Similiia similibus curentur.

https://www.google.com/search?q=similia+similibus+curentur

It may looks chaotic ("explosion") when you don't see the structure.

When you do, you appreciate the density of information.

When I read perl it's like I read a poem: to take a simple example, 'while/until' instead of 'while/while not' creates more beautiful code

Larry Wall has said he likes parenthesis in his LISP like he likes fingernails in his oatmeal. xD Hence, Perl's abilit to forgo parens in many cases.

Or executable line noise (I think I heard that one from slashdot)

Or like an explosion in a sigil pottery :)