Re: What if Perl had an OO standard library?

sustained object-orientation in Perl is difficult because the concept and mechanisms were bolted onto the language as an afterthought

I disagree with this characterization: I consider the way OO capabilities were introduced to perl (in the transition from v4 to v5) by adding support for bless() and $obj->method(...)* was beautiful in its elegance, simplicity and power. I still love it to this day.

What difficulties do you actually find in your search for "sustained object-orientation"? If you could describe those with some examples, it might be easier to discuss whether Venus would be a good solution for them.

(*) plus maybe a couple of other bits and pieces

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Re^2: What if Perl had an OO standard library? by awncorp (Acolyte) on Aug 24, 2022 at 00:18 UTC
No offense intended. The remark that "sustained object-orientation in Perl is difficult …" is just my own fancy way of saying that “treating everything as an object is difficult/manual in Perl”. Data will always enter your program in its raw primitive form, and while you can objectify it (bless it), the lack of a native type system means that your classes and methods can’t be certain of the type of data they’re being passed, which forces you into a position of defensive programming. Consider the following examples (you made a routine and you want to compare anything passed in) ... Note: smatchmatch is experimental and not recommended for production use `sub compare_things { $_[0] ~~ $_[1] }` example #1 `compare_things(1, '') ''` [download] example #2 `compare_things('', '') 1` [download] example #3 `compare_things(1, []) ''` [download] example #4 `compare_things(1, bless{}) Died! Smart matching a non-overloaded object breaks encapsulation` [download] example #5 `compare_things(0, '') ''` [download] example #6 `Venus::Number->new(0)->eq('') # DMMT and DWIM 1` [download] example #7 `Venus::Number->new(0)->tv('') # (tv) type and value equality 0` [download] example #8 `Venus::Number->new(0)->eq(bless{}) # DMMT and DWIM 0` [download] "I am inevitable." - Thanos	[reply] [d/l] [select]

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Re^2: What if Perl had an OO standard library?
by awncorp (Acolyte) on Aug 24, 2022 at 00:18 UTC

No offense intended.

The remark that "sustained object-orientation in Perl is difficult …" is just my own fancy way of saying that “treating everything as an object is difficult/manual in Perl”. Data will always enter your program in its raw primitive form, and while you can objectify it (bless it), the lack of a native type system means that your classes and methods can’t be certain of the type of data they’re being passed, which forces you into a position of defensive programming. Consider the following examples (you made a routine and you want to compare anything passed in) ...

Note: smatchmatch is experimental and not recommended for production use

sub compare_things { $_[0] ~~ $_[1] }

example #1

compare_things(1, '')

''
[download]

example #2

compare_things('', '')

1
[download]

example #3

compare_things(1, [])

''
[download]

example #4

compare_things(1, bless{})

Died! Smart matching a non-overloaded object breaks encapsulation
[download]

example #5

compare_things(0, '')

''
[download]

example #6

Venus::Number->new(0)->eq('') # DMMT and DWIM

1
[download]

example #7

Venus::Number->new(0)->tv('') # (tv) type and value equality

0
[download]

example #8

Venus::Number->new(0)->eq(bless{}) # DMMT and DWIM

0
[download]

"I am inevitable." - Thanos

[reply]
[d/l]
[select]