This strikes me as an odd choice

In a stack machine, it's easier to calculate last what you will need first. The arguments are only needed once the function is called, so it's convenient to calculate the address of the function last.

It's not purely a Perl oddity. Visual Studio .NET 2003's C++ compiler does things in the same order with respect to function pointer vs function argument order: 

#include <stdio.h>

typedef void (*fp)(int);

void f(int) {
   printf("f()\n");
}

fp a() {
   printf("a()\n");
   return &f;
}

int b() {
   printf("b()\n");
   return 0;
}

int main() {
   ((fp)(a()))(b());   // (a())->(b())

   return 0;
}

[download]

outputs 

b()
a()
m()

[download]

In reply to Re: surprising backwards evaluation order by ikegami
in thread surprising backwards evaluation order by fizbin

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.