not adding anything of value to this discussion other than to say, thanks for bringing autobox to my attention. I had no idea this existed. And, contrary to what others may think, I do find the ability to "turn everything into objects" very useful. It is not a matter of "if I want to code like Ruby then I should use Ruby." It is more like giving Perl the ability to program in a currently popular, and arguably easier, idiom of programming.
Look forward to more dissection and discussion of autobox.
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when small people start casting long shadows, it is time to go to bed