It's fallacious because you need to know you will reach the code which can make the determination

That makes no sense. No matter what code is being compiled or executed, it can be determined whether any Perl function has a nullary prototype or not. No piece of Perl code needs to be reached.

Before returning to the subject of this thread, I'd like to point out that ikegami is one of the very best contributors to Perlmonks. The quality of his nodes is even higher than his experience ranking indicates. A monk once suggested that an efficient way to deepen your Perl knowledge is simply to go to the list of ikegami nodes, and read, read, read. I've done this several times, and I'm happy to pass the suggestion on.

ikegami: In a node below, blokhead gives an accurate, longer and more technical explanation. I hope that make things clearer.

I'm happy to revise my node so it explains things better.

You discuss "what is the prototype of a function after parsing" (that's knowable contrary to your claims) rather than "what will be the prototype of a function after parsing" (that's not knowable).

Or put differently, you talk about one instance of the parser when the problem is with differences in the output of different instances of the parser.

If there's a fallacy, it's assuming that the output of an instance of the parser will be the same as the output of another instance of the parser. That would be a very bad fallacy to make since that's the general hypothesis that needs proving or disproving.

Considering he and I are on the same page, I hope it makes things clearer *for you* so you can go address the error in your post.