Hi afoken

Imo, not completely redundant. The 0o377 form has the advantage that it is a string literal that we know perl will interpret as a number, however that happens to be implemented in scalars.

Whereas for the reader initiate the 0377 form can be somewhat ambigious, especially when they are preceded with a leading reference operator performing a similar disambiguation that may ultimately lead to further potentially uneccessary investigation on the part of the unfortunately bewildered acolyte.