I wasn't particularly confused on that point and another choice of example name wouldn't have eliminated my question: Why would you choose to write:

sub whatever {
    #...
    my ($method) = ( caller(0) )[3];
    #...
}
[download]

when it appears to be functionally equivalent to the trival and thus clearer:

sub whatever {
    #...
    my $method= "whatever";
    #...
}
[download]