But then you have a bare arrow on the left. Let me see, you have a situation like:

$foo -> THINGIE
[download]

where THINGIE happens to be do BLOCK.

With current syntax THINGIE can be:

• a sub, array or hash dereferencing: (...), [...] and {...} respectively;
• a bareword, interpreted like a method, with or without a pair of parens to pass parameters, if any: the latter, if present conveys a strong psychological feeling of being linked with the method itself as if they were a single thing;
• a simple scalar value, to be interpreted as a symref (if not under strict) or a subref to be called like a method.

All these thingies are "boxed", while yours look like the juxtaposition of two other thingies, with no surrounding box. It simply doesn't fit well, and is aesthetically unappealing.

Granted, ->${\EXPR} looks awful, but it is an awful use of the existing syntax, which does not permit a more beautiful form. Your proposal makes for ugly syntax to start with: in all earnestness, looking at it from a distance it looks cleaner. But as you close up, you get an unsatisfactory feeling. Of course I would like to say that I have a much more beautiful proposal of my own, but no, I can't devise any...

Update: striked out text above thanks to a /msg by ysth - "a simple scalar can always be a coderef or a method name (either qualified or not); the latter is unaffected by strict".

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