I began using the 'given/when' keywords a couple of weeks back - which are a nice edition in my opinion and make perl that bit more C'ish. However, after finally getting around to downloading the newest "StarberryPerl" this morning I have started to see 'given is experimental' and 'when is experimental' warnings. On consulting the fascinating "PerlDelta" page it seems it is more a question of 'smartmatch' being up for change/deprecation than 'given' itself. However the warnings are still there and the documentation is vague... I think I could specifically switch that warning off, but I do not want to get used to what for me would be a fairly staple code construct and then have it vanish when 5.20 appears.

Do any of you chaps know for sure if 'given' is doomed/safe? Do you use it heavily in your own programmes?