Whether or not caller and each behave sanely is a separate question. Just because it's in core doesn't mean it's a good idea. Frankly, I think that a subroutine should return one and only one type of entity. It shouldn't return a collection (array, in this case) in one situation and an element (first element, in this case) in another. That leads to serious hard-to-debug issues. This isn't theoretical - it's personal experience speaking.
My criteria for good software:
  1. Does it work?
  2. Can someone else come in, make a change, and be reasonably certain no bugs were introduced?

In reply to Re^3: Use of wantarray Considered Harmful by dragonchild
in thread Use of wantarray Considered Harmful by kyle

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