I don't know why you'd waste the time and space to array-ify the return value when a literal slice will work just as easily for those. Instead of:

my $result = shift @{[some list function]};
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just write

my $result = (some list function)[0];
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A whole lot easier on the CPU and the eyes. That's why I invented the literal slice (one of the few things I can lay direct claim to in Perl).

Of course, if you're going to store it into a scalar like this, you can simplify it further:

my ($result) = some list function;
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