My thought on this is that, if the dictates of your application lend or require you to return a list, rather than a ref, try and return the list without building an array first, if it's sensible to do so.

As a example, rather than

sub get_3d_xyz { 
    $self = shift;
    my @xyz = ( $self->get_x()
              , $self->get_y()
              , $self->get_z() );

    return @xyz;
}
[download]

save allocating and building the intermediate lexical array and do

sub get_3d_xyz { 
    $self = shift;
    return ( $self->get_x(), $self->get_y(), $self->get_z() );
}
[download]

Or even,

use constant SELF => 0;
sub get_3d_xyz { 
    ( $_[SELF]->get_x()
    , $_[SELF]->get_y()
    , $_[SELF]->get_z() ); 
}
[download]

Each of those steps shaves a few micro/milliseconds of the operation. Not a lot as and of itself, but at the heart of a 3d-graphic class, significant enough.

Updated: Corrected a couple of typos. Thanks ihb.