It could be in some places, but not in all of them, such as when a method is called on the result returned by an expression.

Thanks though, I will consider this a special optimization.

Should be noted that it's equivalent to writing $obj->$can() (what I called $c_method )

Benchmarks shouldn't change.

update

I think a 3% penalty is an affordable prize for clarity and easier chaining. (actually it's ignorable, Benchmark isn't that exact)

$ perl
use Benchmark qw(cmpthese);

package Example {
    sub new    { bless {}, __PACKAGE__ }
    sub method { }
}

my $obj  = Example->new;
my $meth = 'method';
my $can = $obj->can('method');
cmpthese(-1, {
    direct => sub { $obj->method },
    can2   => sub { $can->($obj) },
    can3   => sub { $obj->$can() },
} );

__END__
    
            Rate direct   can3   can2
direct  893673/s     --   -24%   -26%
can3   1180322/s    32%     --    -3%
can2   1214700/s    36%     3%     --
[download]

Cheers Rolf
_{(addicted to the Perl Programming Language and ☆☆☆☆ :)
Je suis Charlie!}