However the OP was bout dereferencing and given that context it is about the only place you have to use an ampersand. Taking a reference to a named sub has nothing to do with using & versus -> in dereferencing and calling a coderef. The point about goto &$coderef is correct (and that would be one of the exceptions that I was alluding to by qualifying with about), but as the AM points out prototype checking doesn't apply to coderefs so that "counterexample" is also not really relevant. Given the original context the statement is not "completely false".