Because that would be less powerful and slower. Each call to can() would have to create a closure but, in 90% of the cases, it would be almost immediately destroyed.

With the current implementation you can get what you want rather easily. [ This is shown elsewhere in this thead, but please don't override UNIVERSAL::can() as you'll just break other code in some module that is used by some module... that you used. Instead, provide that functionality via a different method name. ] But if your implementation were the default then there would be no easy way to get the current information.

It would no longer work to say     $o1->can($m) == $o2->can($m) to see if two objects are using the same implementation of a method, for example.