I'm not certain, but maybe the bit of the pod you remember reading is this bit

dbmopen HASH,DBNAME,MASK [This function has been largely superseded by the tie function.]

Perhaps that is the source of your confusion?

I think blokhead answered most of your concerns. All I would add is that (IMO) tie is Perls secret weapon.

Despite some concerns about the runtime overhead (which is no worse (I think) than calling OO-methods?), it provides a really easy-to-use mechanism with a simple, consistant interface for encapsulation of almost anything behind perls built-in data structures. This gives many of the benefits that OO-ists hold so dear without requiring each new module to invent and document a completely new interface--the bit that even experienced OO-ists get wrong so often. My only wish is that self-typing and nested-ties worked more intuatively.

I do hope that this simple and infinitely flexible mechanism for abstraction makes it into P6. Hopefully, the parrot engine will make reduce the runtime impact of magic.

Examine what is said, not who speaks.
"Efficiency is intelligent laziness." -David Dunham
"When I'm working on a problem, I never think about beauty. I think only how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong." -Richard Buckminster Fuller
If I understand your problem, I can solve it! Of course, the same can be said for you.

In reply to Re: Re: Re: Style Comments by BrowserUk
in thread Style Comments by mgolini

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