You may have the last word in this thread, as usual.

That's very magnanimous of you to assume the prerogative and then grant it.

As you both asked me a question; and made several scurrilous assertions, I will respond. Whether it is the last response, is your prerogative!

you write "Your intent is merely to make everyone write code your capricious way for no obvious reason,"

Since I didn't write that, nor anything remotely akin to it. Who's libelling whom.

the wanton use of global variables

Nor that.

What should they look like, and what leads you to believe that the addition of lexical filehandles to Perl 5.6 violated the principle of distinction?

Nor that.

And that is pretty much the problem with the draft, as it is here. The mixture of fact and fiction. Of documented reality, with unfounded justifictions.