You cannot change how @ARGV is processed because one of the features of the app is to be able to launch it and have it look for files right off the bat. That's what that shift is there for within the for-loop. By changing to use pop, you have to now put the filenames you want to find, then the connection args, as opposed to the connection args before the optional filenames.

As for the three characters you chop by removing ampersands from two calls to a() and one call to h(), that also doesn't work. The reason for the ampersands is to pass on @_. Removing the ampersands doesn't do that, as demonstrated by this snippet:

sub a { print "'@_'\n"; }
sub b { &a }
sub c { a }

b( 'foo' );
c( 'foo' );

--------
'foo'
''
[download]

Additionally, you actually gained characters by not linebreaking at whitespace. If you look at the original, all five linebreaks were at places where whitespace was required. Matt Skala (the author) and I^* spent hours figuring out how to arrange the functions so that every linebreak was consuming some piece of whitespace while still allowing for the use of the ampersand notation. It's a lot harder than it looks.

I'm sure there's 2-3 characters that can be shaved, but I'll be damned if I know where they are ...

* I'm the Rob Kinyon he mentions on his page.

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