• It's far easier to explain use MODULE to a beginner
• as already said, this could already be activated in a meta package
• you don't need an our declaration
• you can catch format errors right when developing
• you can catch multiple $VERSION errors by making it readonly

> Any tool doing "static" version extraction isn't aided by a module like Version::Easy.

I think you were the one suggesting using tr/_// after declaration, in which way do static parsers do better with your approach?

I think you were the one pointing to the need for developers to check $VERSION in the their tool chain, like test suite?

An object is more robust towards comparing different formats.

> and adds several dependencies.

I only used core modules, and version.pm is loaded anyway in every Perl run using use.

The dependency to Tie::StdScalar could easily be removed.

Questions

• I realize that MakeMaker documents that it can't parse v-strings but I can't find the code for ->parse_version and my tests show any quoted string.°
• Who exactly calls MakeMaker? The author using a recent Perl, or the user who might be using Perl 5.8?
• it's it possible to install a new version of MakeMaker via dependency?

°) looks like v-string here means the literal v1.2.3 notation while quoted strings "v1.2.3" are ok