World's Smallest Shell That Doesn't Completely Suck

 $| = 1;

 while (1) {
 print "perl% ";
 my $command = <STDIN>;
 last if $command eq '';
 chomp $command;
 my (%command) = parse($command);
 my $pid = fork;
 if (! defined $pid) { print STDERR "Couldn't fork: $!\n" }
 elsif ($pid != 0) { wait }

 # Handle redirections
 else { 
 if (defined $command{stdin}) {
 open STDIN, "<", $command{stdin} 
 or die "Couldn't redirect stdin from $command{stdin}: $!\n";
 }
 if (defined $command{stdout}) {
 open STDOUT, $command{append}, $command{stdout} 
 or die "Couldn't redirect stdout to $command{stdout}: $!\n";
 }
 exec $command{program}, @{$command{args}};
 die "Couldn't exec: $!\n";
 }
 }