All- In an attempt to nudge things in the right direction (wrap-up), I've gone through and made some specific comments on RFC's. These are my opinions from monitoring the discussions on this list since its inception. I do not claim to be infallible, but feel I have a pretty good idea of what's been said. Below are specific suggestions as to what should be done with specific RFCs. These are my suggestions; you may feel free to disagree with or ignore them. I am basing these suggestions off what I have seen on the list and other RFCs. Please do not take offense if I suggest your RFC be retracted. This email is an attempt to pare down the number of conflicting RFCs based on community consensus and/or reality. Note: Some of the RFCs discussed here are do not have -objects as the Mailing-List because they predate it. However, I will still comment on these where they're relevant to OO. RFCs that should be Retracted ------------------------------------------------------------------- RFC 95: Object Classes The consensus appeared to be against this, which provided for radical changes to Perl OO and use of . to separate classes. Many of the key points were covered by later RFCs on private methods and class delegation. RFC 171: my Dog $spot should call a constructor implicitly Again, the overwhelming consensus was against this. The later RFC claiming "my Dog $spot is just an assertion" was accepted as the way this should work. RFC 77: Suggested isa() operator Most of these changes are already handled by UNIVERSAL::isa, albeit with a different syntax. If an inline-style assertion is desired, the indirect object syntax can be used. RFC 108: Scope of Polymorphic References and Objects No discussion was recorded on either version of this RFC, and it appears to duplicate features that were more fully explored in subsequent -objects RFCs. If this is incorrect, a clarified version should be reposted by Wed. Otherwise, it should be retracted. RFC 103: Fix C<$pkg::$var> precedence issues with parsing of C<::> This is unrealistic and unimplementable without causing major problems. And that last one's mine, just so you know I don't consider myself above honest evaluation. RFCs that should be Frozen ------------------------------------------------------------------- RFC 153: Replace $self in @_ with self() builtin (not $ME) Some clarification of usage, syntax, and scope must be added. RFC 161: Everything in Perl becomes an object This is a philosophical document which has garnered no true support nor detraction. Some clarification of *why* this would be good should be added. RFC 128: C<my Dog $spot> is just an assertion Pretty much everyone seems to be in agreement. RFC 223: Objects: C<use invocant> pragma The mailing list should be changed to -objects, but I did not hear any specific clarifications that were needed. The remaining -objects RFCs should be clarified and reposted by Wednesday. Finally, in the only effort towards facism I will take on this issue, if I do not hear otherwise by next Friday, Sep 30th, I will request that the above RFCs be retracted/frozen under the assumption that you implicitly agree with my analyses. This is not an attempt to force my will on others, but rather try to wrap things up and present Larry with a set of at least somewhat cohesive RFCs. Thanks, Nate
