but it doesn't feel perlish to me that I have to install modules from CPAN to fix built-in behavior.

Now that is very perlish - using modules to fix built-in behavior. 

use strict;
use warnings;

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although those are pragmas, and core. But see also perl5i

In reply to Re^2: In praise of Perl's object system. by shmem
in thread In praise of Perl's object system. by DStaal

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