Maybe it is, maybe it isn't, but it is the best way to do it. The only other things you can do are add lots of tests or turn off all warnings. Lots of tests can be clunky, and no warnings at all means you have to keep the code locked in the basement where nobody can see it. ;)

But, most of the complaints about the old way of turning off warnings aren't relevant to the new pragma. It _is_ bad to be messing with localized vars to control the compiler or interpreter. It got the job done, but I'm sure happy for the warnings pragma and filehandles as objects... it lets me throw local out of my box altogether.
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