Sometimes it pays not to depend on the default targets.

I've banged my head on similar problems just because I didn't know or misunderstood what was being read.

So now I always use whatever is needed explicitly, e.g., shift(@ARGV). But that's just me because I basicly suck at programming ;). Not a pro by any means.

Personally I'm not a big fan of implicit things like that.

I never use $_ unless I "have to", like in a map, because not naming the variable is a lost opportunity to write clear, self documenting code.

/J