Solve the problem. Don't throw a random bandaid on it.

As far as I see it, the problem is a programmer using an ambiguous variable name, $row, of which he can't remember whether that's a count, or a reference to an array.

The bandaid is introducing a warning in Perl.

I'd say the programmer should fix his naming scheme. Doesn't Perl Best Practises have a say on naming variables as well?