To me, it seems a lot less complex than a self-modifying program.

Oh wait... self-modifying? In what sense? All the code there is, is there in the first place. As with the OP's code, we are talking of a named sub, whose code reference is replaced by an anonymous subroutine at the first call of that named sub. The code block for that anonymous subroutine reference is inside the named sub, and it is called at the first call of that named sub, and at all calls of that sub thereafter.

No code is generated, and no code is modified at runtime. There's a conditional that is optimized away, not by the perl interpreter but explicitly by the programmer.

If we would label that coding as writing a self-modifying program, then using e.g. POSIX would also comprise writing a self-modifying program - and all programs that use the AutoLoader, and all programs that pull in any module via use, require or do file.

_($_=" "x(1<<5)."?\n".q·/)Oo.  G°\        /
                              /\_¯/(q    /
----------------------------  \__(m.====·.(_("always off the crowd"))."·
");sub _{s./.($e="'Itrs `mnsgdq Gdbj O`qkdq")=~y/"-y/#-z/;$e.e && print}

The subroutine changes its own definition. I'd certainly call that self-modifying. The exporter and friends just alias things into other namespaces.

I do use code that does things like this, mostly for accessor methods. Those don't have an obvious simpler alternative.

The subroutine changes its own definition. I'd certainly call that self-modifying.

No, it doesn't. The subroutine's definition is what is inside the code block which gets assigned to the CODE typeglob entry of that named sub. The code reference is changed, nothing else. The rest is providing for something like an INIT block attached to a subroutine.

That's not clear, at first glance, wich is the only objection I have to it. I wonder whether Perl 6 has some better semantics for that.

update: using the AutoLoader, the OP's code could be rewritten in a foo.al:

call_me_only_once();

sub foo {
    # the real foo()
    ...
}
1;
[download]

and we would all be happy autoloading foo and having call_me_only_once() be called just once.

Would that be self-modifying code?

--shmem

_($_=" "x(1<<5)."?\n".q·/)Oo.  G°\        /
                              /\_¯/(q    /
----------------------------  \__(m.====·.(_("always off the crowd"))."·
");sub _{s./.($e="'Itrs `mnsgdq Gdbj O`qkdq")=~y/"-y/#-z/;$e.e && print}