Can someone explain references?

[Mike D]

Hi all, just started using Perl today, coming over from a background in
C#/Java and Python.

I seem to be grasping Perl rather nicely (I think) until I got up to
references in Beginning Perl.

Considering the following code, are all my comments correct?

# this function expects an array to be passed by reference
sub foo
{
    my ($thing1) = @_; # make a lexical variable for the array being passed
    for (@$thing1) # to access the whole array after referencing
    {
        print $_."\n";
    }
    print $thing1->[0]."\n"; # access single element in referenced array
}

my @array = (1,2,3,4);

foo(\@array); # pass @array by reference to sub foo


It's pretty confusing, especially since BP uses prototypes during the
example, which I'm told are bad? Never use them?

Thanks!