You’re right that imported subs are the primary issue, since that’s too much like strange action at a distance. I don’t expect to hose myself so obviously as in the code I showed. There isn’t really a good solution, or a really good solution, or something like that.

As for using package-quoted names like IO::Handle::, I actually do it pretty regularly; it automatically cleans up problems that most people don’t ever want to know about.

We’ve known of this approach for a very long time now, so there’s no excuse not to use it. Perhaps better stated, I don’t consider general CPAN ignorance of it to be any excuse not to use it. What you don’t know can hurt you.

I’m sure there is no shortage of CPAN authors who neglect to check the return values of their close calls, too, but that isn’t going to stop me from religiously doing so. I try to apply more rigorous standards of correctness (or even advisability) than simply looking to majority practice. That’s too much like using Google to rank various misspellings to decide which one “must” be right.

Try it, you’ll like it. Who knows, you could even be a trend-setter.