This means that the following secret stuff will be ignored by both the compiler and the translators. $a=3; =secret stuff warn "Neither POD nor CODE!?" =cut back print "got $a\n"; You probably shouldn't rely upon the warn() being podded out forever. Not all pod translators are well- behaved in this regard, and perhaps the compiler will become pickier. One may also use pod directives to quickly comment out a section of code.