Not strictly a Perl question although the solution will be implemented in Perl and the modules will probably appear on CPAN...

I am writing three, perhaps more, related modules which will have the same basic methods. The three modules will post content to different social media sites. I want to be able to use them something like this:

my $social;
if ($network eq 'Facebook') {
    $social = Bod::Social::Facebook->new( ... );
}
if ($network eq 'Twitter') {
    $social = Bod::Social::Twitter->new( ... );
}
if ($network eq 'LinkedIn') {
    $social = Bod::Social::LinkedIn->new( ... );
}
unless ($social) {
    #  Handle invalid network;
}

# Post text content to whichever network has been selected without car
+ing which
$social->post("Some test text");

# Post text and image content
my $image_handle = $social->upload("images/test.jpg");
$social->post("Test text with image", $image_handle);
[download]

There are at least three four options of how to implement this, probably more. I am looking for some advice on which way I should choose.

1 - Three separate module
Simply write three modules with similar names as in the code above. Each module has methods with the same names and similar new method. All social media platforms use OAuth2 so new can be largely the same.

2 - Three modules that all inherit from one class
Have a Bod::Social module that defines the methods. Then have modules as in the code above that inherit from Bod::Social and implement the methods. A bit like what I understand an interface to be in Java¹. I don't see any advantage in this option in Perl over option 1 but there are certainly modules on CPAN that do this. Either there is good reason or they are written by people coming from stricter OOP languages.

3 - Have a single method and Service Providers
Have a single module that the code uses. In the new method, specify a Service Provider that is different for each social network. Each service provider implements the platform specific calls needed for interacting with the network. LWP::Authen::OAuth2 is implemented this way and it seems to work reasonably well but, again, I don't understand the advantages and disadvantages of this approach. Like this:

my $social;
if ($network eq 'Facebook') {
    $social = Bod::Social->new( 
        service_provider   => 'Facebook',
        ... ,
    );
}
if ($network eq 'Twitter') {
    $social = Bod::Social->new( 
        service_provider   => 'Twitter',
        ... ,
    );
}
if ($network eq 'LinkedIn') {
    $social = Bod::Social->new( 
        service_provider   => 'LinkedIn',
        ... ,
    );
}
[download]

4 - Use a Factory Class
Use a Factory Class as we discussed here -> Factory classes in Perl
As these modules will always run in the same environment this strikes me as overkill.

---

I don't see there being a need to add new networks very frequently but it is quite possible that others will need adding. Which approach would you take or would you use a different solution I haven't considered? Why would you do it that way?

This more general than just this application. Since writing Business::Stripe::WebCheckout I have decided that it would be useful if there was also Business::PayPal::WebCheckout that behaves exactly the same. Therefore the end user's code only has to call a different constructor and everything else gets called the same for multiple payment gateways. I am sure there will be more requirements for multiple related module.

¹ I'm not a Java programmer and only use it when I need to create simple Android apps.

Edit 1: - Added option 4

Edit 2: - Added reference to Business::Stripe::WebCheckout and corrected spelling errors.

---

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