Just for completeness, one can easily achieve the effect of "private subs" by using lexical coderefs.

{
  package MyClass;
 
  my $private= sub {
  ...
  };
 
  $private->();           # call as private function
}
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Sorry for nitpicking :)

UPDATE:

and of course

  $self->$private();      # call as private method
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to pass thru $self as first argument.