> This, on the other hand, is a 'solution' to escaping quotes that is completely mad.
Meh, Perl's solution is fine. You can throw up your hands and say it's crazy, but as a person who worked with Perl for 20 years, I've never had the problem you describe. I tend not to use the qq() or q() style quotes, but I've used s@@@ and s,,, so many times I can't count. It's really quite nice (and perfectly readable unless you do something weird like 'sxxx'.
Meh, Perl's solution is fine. You can throw up your hands and say it's crazy, but as a person who worked with Perl for 20 years, I've never had the problem you describe. I tend not to use the qq() or q() style quotes, but I've used s@@@ and s,,, so many times I can't count. It's really quite nice (and perfectly readable unless you do something weird like 'sxxx'.