I'm a little confused. Supplying a default initial value for a data member when it's declared ...

*thinks for a moment*

*springs up and shouts* Perl does do that!

Here's a standard constructor in Perl:

sub new {
    my $class = shift;
    my %args = @_;

    my $self = bless {}, $class;

    $self->{attrib1} = $args{attrib1} || 'Default 1';
    $self->{attrib2} = $args{attrib1} || 'Default 2';

    return $self;
}
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My point here is that, since Perl doesn't have a mechanism to (natively) define a class in a series of declarative statements (like C++, for example), the "class declaration" is done during new().

Now, you can do other stuff. I have my own personal virtual base class that gives me the capability to "declare" a class at compile time, with default values. I could post it, if desired. *shrugs* It's not that hard!

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