The popular SOAP::Lite module chains method calls together:

  print SOAP::Lite
    -> uri('http://www.soaplite.com/Temperatures')
    -> proxy('http://services.soaplite.com/temper.cgi')
    -> f2c(32)
    -> result;

[download]
I find this totally confusing and not at all intuitive. Why on earth would an object return a copy of itself in response to a setter? It makes no sense. It also seems like it would make debugging harder because it jams all of these method calls onto a single line, albeit a line with whitespace.

I know that I can call these methods in the normal way, but all the documentation, including the O'Reilly books, is written with this style. I have also noticed that this style is spreading. Ovid is using it in his new HTML parsing module.

So I'm curious: am I the only one who thinks this style is terrible? Do other people all love it?

In reply to chaining method calls by perrin

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