Your version is indeed simpler. I had put the sub call in there to see if I could use a parameter for the ternary test (Perl gets angry about your trying to lexicalize @_ if you do that), but failed to remove it.

do you have an explanation for why B::Deparse gets it wrong?
B::Deparse walks through the op-tree reconstructing a Perl program, and I'm guessing that its author didn't anticipate whatever weird optree you get from a ternary inside a "my". That, or it gets defeated by constant folding, just like here: 
$ perl -MO=Deparse -e 'print 0?$a:$b' 
print $b;

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In reply to Re^2: my (0?$a:$b): a koan by educated_foo
in thread my (0?$a:$b): a koan by educated_foo

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