I like Ruby and Perl too, both are cool languages, I run both on my iPAQ; I've also used C++, Java and Python in commercial environments, and I would not grumble if I had to use them again.I didn't feel the need to mention that in the previous post.

In effect, you've proved my point. In defending OO, you've missed the salient points and started with the premise that I'm a novice.

OO Development isn't instantaneous, invariably you'll need to "reign in" the analyst who's so busy producing a design that match the "problem set" rather than observing what goes into the system and what comes out. When running OO code, in Perl at least using OO has an overhead. I think you know these things already.

Perl OO isn't a good way to learn how OO works as it doesn't protect you from bad things, it'll take you longer as you stumble across means of implementing singletons and avoiding diamond inheritance structures. Of course when you do, you'll be a hardened veteran, whereas other langauages will not tell you of these horrors, simply avoid them silently, by means of the language design (mostly). This is where Damian Conway's book is indispensable. OO is fun in Perl, but Perl isn't meant to teach you OO.

If you're using Perl and nothing else, of course you'll learn OO using Perl makes sense, but it's only maginally less stressful than learning a new language and OO at the same time. Of course I'm speaking as one who learnt C++, Perl then Java then OO Perl.

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Brother Frankus.