Perl is also my primary language, and it is partly why I like highlighting. It may state something about the opinions of the programmer; perhaps that complex interpolations in strings, among other things, might be a code smell they don't like, and avoid. Having no highlighting would remind you not to do that sort of thing.
I think the sigils alone are sufficient to flag variables in strings...but when things get complicated and span multiple lines, it can become ugly and difficult to work with. But, I'm not convinced this is the most useful function of highlighting in perl (again, because the sigils already provide visual clues)...it think it's more useful in pointing out unclosed parens, brackets, quotes, etc., and letting you know your syntax is wonky.
That said, it may be laziness on my part. I find it soothing to have highlighting enabled, and I get nervous when it's not, as I'm never quite sure I've got the syntax right until I check it.
I think the sigils alone are sufficient to flag variables in strings...but when things get complicated and span multiple lines, it can become ugly and difficult to work with. But, I'm not convinced this is the most useful function of highlighting in perl (again, because the sigils already provide visual clues)...it think it's more useful in pointing out unclosed parens, brackets, quotes, etc., and letting you know your syntax is wonky.
That said, it may be laziness on my part. I find it soothing to have highlighting enabled, and I get nervous when it's not, as I'm never quite sure I've got the syntax right until I check it.