in reply to Re^3: ::'s role in strings
in thread ::'s role in strings

It works so that you can write: 
use Foo;  # defines Foo::new() among others
sub Foo { "Oh no, Mr. Bill!" }
$x = new Foo::;

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because $x = new Foo would NOT work under those circumstances.
Jeff japhy Pinyan, P.L., P.M., P.O.D, X.S.: Perl, regex, and perl hacker
How can we ever be the sold short or the cheated, we who for every service have long ago been overpaid? ~~ Meister Eckhart

In Section Seekers of Perl Wisdom