yes you are somehow right. I just not explored yet the possibility of using Path::Tiny even if i have eard very well about it. Anyway i do not dislike the use of low levels: they are the foundamentals, usefull to know and understand, imho.
perl -e "print scalar localtime((stat $ARGV[0])[9])" .
Mon Jul 27 09:30:25 2015
L*
There are no rules, there are no thumbs..
Reinvent the wheel, then learn The Wheel; may be one day you reinvent one of THE WHEELS.