>>>>> "R" == R Joseph Newton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
R> "Randal L. Schwartz" wrote: >> >>>>> "Dan" == Dan Anderson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: >> Dan> my $class = ref($proto) || $proto; >> >> Don't do this! >> >> <http://www.perlmonks.org/index.pl?node_id=52089>. R> Hi Randal, R> Read the article, and it percursor thread. I'm still a little mystified as to R> what you find offensive there. Perhaps one should be aware of the contents, if R> any, of @ISA, before writing the new method. It doesn't always work that way, R> though, and having a flexible [and standardized] constructor does not seem to do R> any harm. Is there some potential harm you see? Sorry you missed the point then. The point is that $instance->new could mean either "clone", or "make one of the same class as". You don't need it for "make one of the same class as", because you've got: (ref $instance)->new to do that explicitly. And if you really wanted that to do clone, CALL IT CLONE, don't call it ->new. It obscures more than it clarifies, and hence is a *bad* name for an instance method. And because it's a bad name for an instance method, it should not respond as an instance method. That simplifies the "standard constructor immensely", to something like: sub new { my $class = shift; my $self = { ... }; other fixups return bless $self, $class; # return is optional here } This makes your code both clearer, and faster. The "ref($proto) || $proto" code originally came from a guy who had not done a lot of OO programming, and didn't completely understand it apparently. *I* was programming in Smalltalk in 1980. *I* understand the need for well-chosen method names. So, while I cannot get "perltoot" removed from the docs, I'm trying to do damage control to fix that problem. There... does that help? It's not about @ISA. It's about proper choice for method names. $instance->new has too many meanings to be a good name, ever. -- Randal L. Schwartz - Stonehenge Consulting Services, Inc. - +1 503 777 0095 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> <URL:http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/> Perl/Unix/security consulting, Technical writing, Comedy, etc. etc. See PerlTraining.Stonehenge.com for onsite and open-enrollment Perl training! -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
