I'd rather have two dozen shifts than a single goto. There's something almost assembler-like about that version of the goto statement. I've used it before, but only inside an AUTOLOAD. That's also only because in my opinion, AUTOLOAD is lacking some important functionality, like being able to return a subroutine reference that is automatically injected into the namespace to plug a hole. That, however, is another story.

Further, moving the @_ check to the front of the subroutine might not be viable. Or you could have something like this: 
sub fooge
{
     my ($foo, $bar, @baz) = @_;

     # ...

     if ($foo->isa('Acme::Frobnicator'))
     {
          die "Missing 'baz' parameter to fooge()\n" unless (@baz);
          $foo->frob(@baz);
          # ...
     }

     # ...
}

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You can do that with shift, sure, but it's not as concise.

Now regardless, I still can't see why using shift is better in any respect. Where do you draw the line? Four parameters? Five? And why draw the line at shift? 
sub fooge
{
     my ($foo, $bar) = (pop, pop);
}

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You'll note that shift is more verbose, and also permanently modifies @_. I'd rather have it there intact for debugging purposes. For example: 
sub blarg
{
     my ($foo, $bar, $bork) = @_;

     # ...
     if (computer_is_on_fire())
     {
          die "Apocalyptic end of blarg(@_)\n";
     }
}

[download]

In reply to Re^6: Shifty Politics by tadman
in thread stoping and restarting a loop by mnlight

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