in reply to Re^3: Clarifying the Comma Operator (bareword)
in thread Clarifying the Comma Operator

Perl doesn't know for the very good reasons you quote. But the (partial) sentence I quoted from the docs, gives the impression that the => operator somehow makes a string out of its left-hand argument, which it cannot do anymore as the "octal" error already occurred.

CountZero

A program should be light and agile, its subroutines connected like a string of pearls. The spirit and intent of the program should be retained throughout. There should be neither too little or too much, neither needless loops nor useless variables, neither lack of structure nor overwhelming rigidity." - The Tao of Programming, 4.1 - Geoffrey James

In Section Seekers of Perl Wisdom