Besides saving a character is it preferable to while (1)?

Absolutely not

When did it get added to the language?

Seeing how it is not documented in the documentation anywhere, it could be argued it is not part of the language :)

#38254: Inconsistent behaviour of 'while ()' and 'until ()'

In reply to Re: while () vs. while (1) by Anonymous Monk
in thread while () vs. while (1) by perl5ever

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