I usually avoid shift unless I specifically need that array reduction behavior. In the context of parameter processing this is usually in OO-land when one method needs to call another with the same arguments it was given, e.g.

sub method1 
   {
   my $self = shift;

   ... maybe do some stuff ...

   $self->method2(@_);

   ... maybe do some more stuff ...

   return $something;
   }

# or even more simply
sub method2 { shift->method3(@_) }
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Otherwise I always my($c,...) = @_;