BEGIN {
     my $verbosity = shift; # or Getopts::Std, whatever...
     eval "sub verbose () { $verbosity }";
}

##</code><code>##

print "Holy Crap = $holy_crap\n" if $verbose >= 1;

##</code><code>##

qwurx [shmem] ~ > perl -MO=Deparse,-x,-p - 1
BEGIN { 
    my $verbose;
    1 while ($verbose = shift) !~ /^\d$/; # get rid of -MO=Dep...
    eval "sub verbose () { $verbose }";
}
print "Holy Crap = $holy_crap\n" if verbose >= 1;
__END__
sub BEGIN {
    my($verbose);
    '???' while (not (($verbose = shift(@ARGV)) =~ /^\d$/));
    eval("sub verbose () { $verbose }");
}
print("Holy Crap = $holy_crap\n");
__DATA__
- syntax OK

qwurx [shmem] ~ > perl -MO=Deparse,-x,-p - 0
BEGIN { 
    my $verbose;
    1 while ($verbose = shift) !~ /^\d$/; # get rid of -MO=Dep...
    eval "sub verbose () { $verbose }";
}
print "Holy Crap = $holy_crap\n" if verbose >= 1;
__END__
sub BEGIN {
    my($verbose);
    '???' while (not (($verbose = shift(@ARGV)) =~ /^\d$/));
    eval("sub verbose () { $verbose }");
}
'???';      <----- hooray! gone :-)
__DATA__
- syntax OK