[chromatic]

A modern Perl programmer might write something much more elegant:

    my $x = 'Apple Carrot Banana';
    my @y = $x->split(' ')->sort;

    if (@y > 2) {
        say "we've got ${\@y->size} elements!";
    } else {
        say "insufficient elements. fail.";
    }

[perigrin]

And one that doesn't like autobox would say:

    use 5.12.2; # enables modern features
    my $x = 'Apple Carrot Banana';
    my @y = sort split ' ', $x;

    say @y > 2 ? "we've got ${\scalar @y} elements!" 
               : 'insufficient elements. fail.';

Not everything needs to be an Object. Not every call needs to be a method call. Some people think better with procedures, some people think better with objects.

One of the reasons I personally like Perl is I can use which ever one is appropriate to the problem domain.

Edit: forgot the `sort` call.

[colomon]

Or ever-so-slightly lighter Perl 6 version:

    my $x = 'Apple Carrot Banana';
    my @y = $x.words.sort;

    if @y > 2 {
        say "we've got {@y.elems} elements!";
    } else {
        say "insufficient elements. fail.";
    }