Perl is opensource. As such, there are dozens of modules on CPAN that use tying. One example is DBM::Deep. It implements tying for both arrays and hashes and it implements (nearly) every single method that the tie interface provides for arrays and hashes. If DBM::Deep doesn't do it or worry about it, then it's probably not something you need to worry about. (If I'm mistaken, I need to know cause it's a bug in DBM::Deep!)