Hm, although you sometimes have to do it (at least for simple cases with just a couple or so of alternatives), storing what is really reference data in conditionals within the code is usually rather poor practice and generally does not scale well.

If I have to store reference data within the code, I very much prefer to store it all in a self-contained data structure such as a hash, or a HoH, or whatever suits best the needs, at least if possible. Although in the case in point, we were really thinking of storing reference data in a separate file (of DB, or whatever) and loading it in the program on demand.

Another point is that the smartmatch operator and the given ... when conditional have been sort-of deprecated (well, marked "experimental feature") and will issue a warning as of 5.18, so there are really some caveats to using them.