It may be superseded by more recent p5p discussions about a "postfix dereference" operator.

Which would be an even more useless, fad-driven, change-for-change's-sake, distraction to nowhere than auto-dereferencing.

The justifiction for this: @{ $ref } becoming: $ref->@* or $ref->[] (empty brackets) or dog-knows what else is: Blech

I ask you. The technical justifiction is "Blech".

Funnily enough, I agree that this: push @{ $x->{foo}->[0]->m }, $y; is a bit ugly.

But who writes code like that anyway? And what would it mean if they did?

Let's break that mother down:

1. $x is a reference
2. to a hash that has a key 'foo'
3. who's value is an array
4. of objects that have a method 'm'
5. that takes no arguments and returns a reference to an array
6. onto which we need to push values.

Why would anyone invent an api that requires you to call a method to get a reference to an (internal) array onto which we are to push values; rather than just passing the values to be pushed to a method that does it for us?

Yes, I know it is an invented, over-the-top example to make a point.

And that's my point. If you have to use an invented, over-the-top example to justify something; you've failed.

Cos, $x{foo}[0]->push( $y ) is clean, simple and obvious. And it works right now.