The point is very good and I agree and ++ed for that.

But why the prototype? And if you're going to use one, why are you calling the subroutine in a piece of code prior to declaring it, causing perl to complain that it's too early to have the prototype checked at that point?

Most of the time, you shouldn't use prototypes at all. There are only very rare circumstances which justify them, and I don't consider this one of them.

Makeshifts last the longest.