The one true "Camel" book (aka. Programming Perl) describes your first method exactly, as a way in which one can make really private methods using Perl, should one want to do that.

I also agree with the conclusion though, and the books nice anology: Perl doesn't keep you out of its space with a shotgun, it assumes you will respect its boundaries anyway. (probably misquoted ,) Module programmers should do the same..

C.