Overall, nice discussion. To comment on one point you raised, though... you wrote: 
    sub error {
        print $data; # oops, doesn't work!
    }

[download]
Well, it *does* work. If you try it, you'll see that it works just fine, because it's a lexical variable... lexical to the scope of the file. And the error sub is defined in the file, so $data is visible there.

That's not to say that it's recommended, of course, because it can definitely cause you problems. Particularly when using mod_perl. You'll get the dreaded "variable may not stay shared" message, because essentially you've defined a closure.

That said, though, good points.

In reply to RE: RE: Benchmark.pm's scoping behavior by btrott
in thread Benchmark.pm's scoping behavior by Russ

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