Interesting points. To be fair, the original implementation only sets the name attribute equal to $_[0] as well, by virtue of $self->{name} = shift. I was less interested in the case of empty array as I was in the case of setting the attribute 'name' to be a scalar value, which seemed to make more sense. Should have been more clear. ;-)

As to die "No arguments in set_name()" unless @_;, note that I did leave a space in the setter to validate behavior, since we aren't going from a spec. Depending on the behavior required, that line may or may not be appropriate. The behavior you described as erratic is what I intended, but its interesting that we looked at the same OP and drew differing conclusions.

I guess this is an example to designers about how unclear specs can lead to unexpected behavior. ;-)