Well to me the first one is 'cute' and I wouldnt use it except in a few situations (such as one line closures and the like) where it is in some way isolated and obvious. (obfus as well :) There is a second reason that I sometimes end up using this form, and that would be when i need to an 'if' to the left side of a modifier, like for or while. Its not good coding practice in general but it still can be readable in some situations:

  $_ eq $target && last foreach @value;
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The second I like especially if the 'function' is a flow control keyword like next,last or redo or return. Also where there is no else and the if is expected to most often succeed, or on the contrary where I want to stylistically emphasize something. Like

  die "Whoa! Bad Majo" if $bad_mojo;
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The third I would do if I thought there was the slightest possibility I would need to have an else or multiple statements. Having said that, generally if there is no need for an else block my reasoning for using the second form usually already applies.

Oh yeah, if IIRC this type of stuff is covered in perlstyle quite nicely I thought.

HTH

Yves
--
You are not ready to use symrefs unless you already know why they are bad. -- tadmc (CLPM)