While the respective style guide is part of Programming Perl (3rd Edition, july 2000) in a way - some wordings are different, not as brief and more concise - the ambiguous advice in question does not seem to be part of it. The relevant chapter is 24 'Common Practices', 'Programming with Style' IMHO.
I am wondering whether it was omitted on purpose, or was it added to the pod later on?

Regards,
jonix