difference between "@_" and "shift"

[Graeme McLaren]

Hi all, I'm having a look in to object oriented perl.  Can anyone tell me 
what the difference between @_ and shift is?  As far as I know there is no 
difference except "shift" removes the parameter from the @_ array so if you 
were to "shift" all parameters passed to a function nothing would be 
containted in @_   is this correct?

I'm asking because I'm a little confused about using it.  Why can't I do 
this:

#######################################
sub nickname {
       my $self = shift;
       return $self->{NICK};
}
#######################################
But I can do this:
#######################################
sub nickname {
       my $self = shift;
        if (@_) { $self->{NICK} = shift
        }
       return $self->{NICK};
   }
#######################################
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