I understand what you are saying.

I can't tell you where (one of the perldeltas?) but I've read that Perl has to jump through some mighty hoops to make the Module->function() syntax work, and sometimes guesses wrong.

  new Net::SMTP $smtp_server or die "Failed:$1";
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It may not fix it, but it should be educational. To really force the matter, try:

  Net::SMTP::new('Net::SMTP', $smtp_server);
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