You can't create global variables when using strict but you can create lexical variables

This isn't strictly true (NPI). You can't use variables that either haven't been declared (see. my|/our and vars) or aren't fully qualified while the strict 'vars' pragma is in use e.g

shell> perl -c -
use strict 'vars';
use vars qw( $foo );

$foo       = "package variable declared with use vars";
my $bar    = "lexical variable";
$main::baz = "fully qualified package variable";
our $quux  = "YAWTDAV";

$::abc     = 'shortcut for $main::abc';
${*{$main::{x}}{SCALAR}} = 'verbosely assign to $::x';

- syntax OK
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HTH

_________
broquaint