When printing in Perl, you can drop a variable into a double quoted string ant it will be interpretter for you:

"--- $number ---"

If you want to perform an operation on the variable, though, it's not as easy - you have to come out of the double quoted string, do the calculation, then start another string:

"--- ",$number + 1," ---"

In Ruby, variable names do NOT start with a $ so you can't simply drop them in to your double quoted string. Instead, you can write #{expression} within the double quotes and that gives you ...

"--- #{number + 1} ---"

And that's fabulous - it gives you the ability to write any expresion you want, or just a simple variable, with a double quoted string and have the same simple syntax for both.
(written 2006-12-15 04:57:25)

 P205 - Perl - Initial String Handling
R109 - Ruby - Strings and Regular Expressions

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Ruby - Totally Topical
Melksham Quiz
You should think you're first in a hotel room
Ruby v Perl - interpollating variables
puts - opposite of chomp in Ruby
Equality in Ruby - == eql? and equal?
Cardinal numbers and magic numbers
Blessing in Perl / Member variable in Ruby
Notes from the white board