perlmodlib says (emphasis mine):
"They work somewhat like compiler directives (pragmata) in that they tend to affect the compilation of your program, and thus will usually work well only when used within a use, or no. ... Some pragmas are lexically scoped--typically those that affect the $^H hints variable. Others affect the current package instead, like use vars and use subs..." | [reply] |
Well, if I were into mind-reading, I would speculate that somebody considered a module that defined the parent classes of the current module to be more of a pragma-type-thingy than not (in the generally hand-waving spirit that seems to be popular in the Perl world). And if I were a computer scientist or otherwise deeply versed in the historical useage of the term "pragma" in a programming context, I might add some commentary on the wisdom of this choice. As I can claim none of these accomplishments, I will merely point to the words "in general" and note that I was paraphrasing perlmod, and cheerfully punt away the responsibility for anything that irks you about this arguable inconsistency onto more august shoulders than mine.
If God had meant us to fly, he would *never* have given us the railroads.
--Michael Flanders
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The same reason we have vars.pm instead of Vars.pm (they're pragmatic). | [reply] |