That is a completely lame reason. Recommending the usage of undocumented/undefined features is bad. Claiming the legality of undocumented/undefined behaviour is sub-optimal.

But I was wrong.¹   broquaint is correct, the construct:

use strict 'refs';
[download]

my $v = \&{'foo'};Is legal.

It is documented as the as the one exceptional case necessary to let AUTOLOAD run under stricture.

Thanks for the education.

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¹ This is emblazoned so you won't miss the info re: strict, not because an error of mine is noteworthy per se. I wish.

Updated as broquaint tells me I misrepresented his words.