I always thought of roles as abstract sets of characteristics and not the individual characteritics. So all regexs would be do the REGEX (or Regexp if you want to split hairs) role. That implies that it can be used as a regex just like things that do the ARRAY role are arrays. Dereferencing isn't a role, its a part of a role and it all then depends on how you actualy define the roles. If you as anything that reports to do ARRAY has to be able to be dereferenced as an array then you don't need @{} and ARRAY you just need ARRAY. Like i said before if you are asking about one specific method (derferncing or otherwise) wouldn't you wan to use 'can'? I think a generic "what do you claim to do?" and can is a "what have you actualy implemented" and i think joining the two concepts is more magical and confusing than needed.

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