Yes, if you want to write C this sort of thing is the least of your problems. Perl is certainly simpler and easier to learn than C. I'd also agree that Perl's declaration syntax is simpler than Java's, but what isn't simpler than Java's type system at this point? ;)

The simple syntax works in multiple Perl alternatives: PHP and Ruby are the ones I know about. Both languages have intelligent defaults to eliminate the need, in many cases, for newbs to think hard about what they're doing. (By default, PHP passes an array of arguments, by value -- with hidden optimizations to avoid the overhead of excess copying. The PHP argument array may include entire arrays as arguments. Meanwhile, in Ruby everything is an object, so Ruby passes an array of object references.) These are the languages which constitute Perl's competition, today. (Along with Python, of course, which I am unfairly leaving out of my argument because but I don't know how Python handles arguments! But I'm sure the answer is "with reasonable intelligence".)