The accessors pragma lets you create simple accessors at compile-time. This saves you from writing them by hand, which tends to result in cut-n-paste errors and a mess of duplicated code. It can also help you reduce the amount of unwanted direct-variable access that may creep into your code base when you're feeling lazy. accessors was designed with laziness in mind. Method-chaining accessors are generated by default. This may be changed in future versions! If you want backwards compatibility use accessors::chained and wait until the dust settles. See accessors::classic for accessors that always return the current value if you don't like method chaining. WWW: http://search.cpan.org/dist/accessors/