I personally think that it is “definitely relevant,” especially because so many of today’s programmers seem to come from one of two backgrounds:   either “anything goes” (JavaScript), or “amazingly-thorough compile-time checks (Java).   The majority seem to come from the latter school, so they expect that the Perl compiler/interpreter does more “compile-time checking” than it actually does.

Personally, I also happen to subscribe to the school of thought that says:   “the computer ought not trust me so much ... that’s what computers are for.”   I like for compilers to catch as many of my inevitable mistakes as they can.   And, I think that most programmers today are conditioned to expect the computer to have done so.   To the extent that we can drill into people’s heads the necessity of specifying these two pragmas, Perl does a reasonably good job.   But if you don’t do this, “Perl trusts you.”   And that, I think, is what gets in the way.   I know that I make “stupid tpyos” all the time, and that I rely on a compiler’s attentiveness.