This may go without saying, but ...
If $a === $b means what I think it does, then I believe that a
not-premature implementation optimization of === would be that it
always $a := $b if it was returning true, so that any future === of
$a and $b or aliases thereof could short-circuit with a =:= test even
if they weren't created as aliases, and Perl would be automatically
more memory efficient without those extra storage copies.
I know that was an implementation issue, but I think that it stands
to be explicitly stated anyway, as it is a very simple and effective
way to make Perl programs more resource efficient, possibly by orders
of magnitude, over not doing so.
(The only time this may not work is if so-called immutable types are
tied to external resourses, but then I'm not sure how often this
would happen in practice so it could just be an exception if
necessary. The above-stated rule would still stand for any resources
managed by Perl itself.)
-- Darren Duncan
