title: Performance with Perl Strings
body: <p>I've been running across a lot of Perl code that breaks long strings up this way:</p>
  
  <pre><code>my $string = "Hi, I am a very long and chatty string that just won't";
  $string .= " quit.  I'm going to keep going, and going, and going,";
  $string .= " kind of like the Energizer bunny.  What are you going to";
  $string .= " do about it?";
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>From my background with Java, building a string like this would be a performance no-no.  Is the same true with Perl?  In my searches, I have read that using <code>join</code> on an array of strings is the fastest way to concatenate strings, but what about when you just want to break up a string for readability?  Is it better to write:</p>
  
  <pre><code>my $string = "Hi, I am a very long and chatty string that just won't" .
      " quit.  I'm going to keep going, and going, and going," .
      " kind of like the Energizer bunny.  What are you going to" .
      " do about it?";
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Or do I use <code>join</code>, or how should it be done?</p>