I have been seeing lots of progs and subs that start: 

my $p1 = shift;
my $p2 = shift;
my $p3 = shift;

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instead of  my ($p1, $p2, $p3) = @_;?

Are these totally equivalent and the differences are purely author preference?

Totally equivalent, but the @_ version didn't come along until later and there has been no reason to change it?

I am missing something subtle thats makes the difference?

In reply to Getting parameters in subs by BrowserUk

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