The script from above can be even more simplified:

#!/usr/bin/perl
print "hello world"

  1. The brackets around "hello world" are not required.
  2. The semicolon after the last statement is not required.

Also you can do away with the whole #!/usr/bin/perl deal. Your script ends up looking like this:

print "hello world"

Of course you'll have to run your script like this: perl scriptfile

See how easy it is to read Perl!