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All the Perl that's Practical to Extract and Report

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Would you shoot me for this? 9 Comments More | Login | Reply /

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  • please, no (Score:1)

    by perrin (4270) on 2005.01.05 0:49 (#37229) Journal
    Sorry Ovid, but this is an abomination. It kind of sums up many of the problems with Perl culture: obsession with syntax over utility, willful use of obscure features like using the import list for other things, and a desire to make everything REALLY short. Give the module a normal name, call the alias method like a normal method, and give intermediate perl programmers a chance in hell of understanding your code. Otherwise, it belongs in Acme::.

    • I fear that you are in the minority. Though many have objected to the name -- leading me to change it -- you're the only person who has objected to the idea of the module.

      The inspiration for this code was a module named "Aliased" that Rentrak [rentrak.com] uses extensively in their code. (They have graciously allowed me to duplicate the functionality of the code.) The reason I mention this is because while the code is new, the interface is not and it has withstood the test of time for very large scale systems (enterp

      • I think you're misunderstanding me. I don't object to the module, only to the interface. I think it should have a simple interface with no obscure import() subversion and no pragma-like class names. The concept of aliasing is clear enough -- it's that API you came up with that I don't like.

        • Yes, I did misunderstand you. However, even though there are a couple of people who objected to the interface, I fear you're still in the minority. As I mentioned previously, I and a number of other programmers have been using a virtually identical interface for so long without any problems (and with strong benefits) that I'm still quite comfortable with the interface.

          You are someone who I generally pay extra attention to given my respect for your abilities. In this case, I must disagree due to extens

    • I was going to post a flame about how the whole point of programming language design is to obsess over syntax in the name of achieving greater utility. That's what gave us idioms like 'open or die' and foreach loops over hand-compiling tail recursive forms.

      But I see that your clarification, and yes, the abuse of the import list is quite horrid.

      Perl is a dynamic language. There's no reason why the magic fiddling must happen at compile time, nor is there any reason why it the aliasing must use a use sta

      • Well, my thought is pretty straight-forward: the current code I have implemented not only works, it fits very naturally with current Perl syntax. I can't say that I like the syntax of how I handled importing, but that's not the common case. The important thing is that the common case be handled easily. The more programming people do, the more they want the common things to be short-n-sweet.

        My code is ready to be uploaded and I'm merely waiting for last minute objections from the modules@cpan.or

        • The only reservation I have is about my use of UNIVERSAL::can.

          As well you should. The right code is even shorter and clearer.

          • Silly me. For some stupid reason I thought I shouldn't use $package->can('import') because there's no guarantee that there's an import method. Mentally I thought "there's no guarantee that package can('can') and that might throw an error." It's weird how muddled my mind substituted "can" for "import" in that method call :/

      • I like that API much better. My beef with the original API is that it uses pragma-like names and a non-obvious use of import (which is unfortunately catching on because of Test::More), and all for the sake of syntax rather than added functionality. To me, it looks like a disregard for the larger effects on the community, i.e. if everyone did crazy stuff like this to get a particular syntax for their modules, CPAN would be a total disaster. I have also seen this kind of thing get people into trouble, as i
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