shell> perl -e 'print  "what? [", $main::{'VERSION'}, "]\n";'
what? []
shell> perl5.8.0 -e 'print  "what? [", $main::{'VERSION'}, "]\n";'
what? []
shell> perl -e '$VERSION=1; \
                print  "what? [", $main::{'VERSION'}, "]\n";'
what? [*main::VERSION]
shell> perl5.8.0 -e '$VERSION=1; \
                     print  "what? [", $main::{'VERSION'}, "]\n";'
what? [*main::VERSION]