Since Perl 5.6.0 we can perform file operations using a scalar - which is quite convenient to pass around in function calls. For example -

open my $fh, ">output.txt"
    or die "Can't create output: $!";
print {$fh} "Hello world!\n";
close $fh;  # if don't close, then it will be closed
            # automatically when $fh is out of scope.
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However the above code is not valid in version of Perl prior to 5.6.0, which I am still using on some of the production boxes. However the following will work on Perl prior to 5.6.0.

my $fh = IO::File "output.txt", "w"
   or die "Can not create output: $!";
print $fh "Hello world!\n";
undef $fh;
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My preference of IO::File over open is on the Perl version compatibility and also ease of use.

This is only my personal perference however.