This is not (as much) the case on 5.10:

Q:\>perl -w tmp.pl
                Rate class_nodot     literal       class
class_nodot 459753/s          --        -11%        -12%
literal     518377/s         13%          --         -1%
class       523687/s         14%          1%          --

Q:\>perl -v

This is perl, v5.10.0 built for MSWin32-x86-multi-thread

Copyright 1987-2007, Larry Wall

Perl may be copied only under the terms of either the Artistic License
+ or the
GNU General Public License, which may be found in the Perl 5 source ki
+t.

Complete documentation for Perl, including FAQ lists, should be found 
+on
this system using "man perl" or "perldoc perl".  If you have access to
+ the
Internet, point your browser at http://www.perl.org/, the Perl Home Pa
+ge.

[download]

And at least when considering the readability, I prefer the method of writing the class instead of backslashing stuff, myself.

In reply to Re: The cost of unchecked best practices by Corion
in thread The cost of unchecked best practices by moritz

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