I prefer charnames over utf8.

Sure, the latter allows you to use characters from the extended character set directly in your source code, even in function or variable names.

However, when working in a mixed environment, or collaborating/sharing over different architectures, many editors (and viewers) have different display settings. Most of these don't understand the in-band signalling that is "use utf8", especially if web viewers or Perlmonks come into the mix.

Of course, if all is correctly configured,

use utf8;
my $str = "09 Handel_ Water Music Suite - Bouré.m4a";
[download]

is easier to read than

# use charnames if your Perl is older than 5.16
my $str = "09 Handel_ Water Music Suite - Bour\N{LATIN SMALL LETTER E 
+WITH ACUTE}.m4a";
[download]

Tis is also helpful for languages where your coworker or maintainer is unfamiliar with. For me,

• "मुक्ता" is more or less unreadable for me, because I don't know the letters,
• "मुक्ता" makes me at least a bit confident that no bits were mangled,
• but "\N{DEVANAGARI LETTER MA}\N{DEVANAGARI VOWEL SIGN U}\N{DEVANAGARI LETTER KA}\N{DEVANAGARI SIGN VIRAMA}\N{DEVANAGARI LETTER TA}\N{DEVANAGARI VOWEL SIGN AA}" gives me at least an idea what it is 😉

Of course, YMMV, as always.