About as special as they always have been.

They continue to be package variables. As such, they must be accessed from other packages by their fully qualified names. I'm sure there are familiar methods to import package variables from one package to another, but I don't recall them at the moment. Perhaps others...? 

>perl -wMstrict -le
"$a=27; package foo; print $::a;
"
27

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In reply to Re: just how special are $a and $b these days? by AnomalousMonk
in thread just how special are $a and $b these days? by davidnicol

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