You could try something like this, though I'm not sure it's not uglier than what you have. :) Although this doesn't have a conditional in the sort-block, so it should be faster, I think.

my $field = "name";

sub numsort { $a->{$field} <=> $b->{$field} }
sub alphasort { $a->{$field} cmp $b->{$field} }

my @data = (
    { name => 'jim', age => 16 },
    { name => 'bob', age => 18 },
);

my $sortsub = $field eq "name" ? 'alphasort' : 'numsort';
my @sorted;
{
    no strict 'refs';
    @sorted = sort $sortsub @data;
}
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You need the "no strict 'refs'" because that

sort $sortsub @data
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is actually using symbolic references, which is ugliness itself. :)

Can sort subs be sub references? From the docs I looked at, it doesn't seem like they can. If they could, that would be a *much* cleaner way of doing it.