Stringy eval has its uses. Moose and Moo use it extensively for creating fast inlined accessors and constructors. Template-Toolkit uses it to create templates.

However it can also enable all sorts of ugly practices. For example, poor man's symbolic references...

use strict;

my $red    = '#ff0000';
my $green  = '#00ff00';
my $blue   = '#0000ff';

my $colour = 'green';
my $hex    = eval "\$$colour"; # symbolic reference
print "$hex\n";
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When many newcomers turn to stringy eval, it's often because they're unaware of a better solution to their problem.

This is my problem with Perl::Critic. It takes a generally good guideline (stringy eval is often a bad idea; investigate other options first) and turns it into a concrete rule.

Yes, of course there's no critic comments but I don't really want to litter those around my code like rat droppings. (no strict and no warnings are already enough of an eyesore.)