I wonder if this change is tied to the work that was done allowing copy on write strings. Modifying a large string in place via a reference doesn't look like it would play well with the idea of having multiple variables using copy-on-write so they can share one actual copy of a large string.

In reply to Re^3: Access via substr refs 2000 times slower by tilly
in thread Access via substr refs 2000 times slower by BrowserUk

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