Commenting on some of the responses (mainly about security):

I see two lines of thought here. The first can be represented by:

"Perl doesn't have an infatuation with enforced privacy. It would prefer that you stayed out of its living room because you weren't invited, not because it has a shotgun."

Which means - since the source is open anyway there's no point in securing the code itself but rather the machine that runs it. That I am happy agree with. On the other hand, I also see this line of thought:

"The only way to secure your computer is to remove drives and weld the case."

This is something I once saw in a discussion about securing desktop PCs from tampering, where somebody commented that usernames and passwords are a waste because "I could always go to that PC and boot it with Knoppix". Yes, he could. If one is determined enough, he can crack into almost anything. Will that make anyone take less care of security? So the comments like "Java programmers just think their code cannot be decompiled" are a bit like saying "weld your case". If you have the time and patience, you can disassemble even a binary file and learn how it works. Most people (and the average script-kiddie) won't, though - at least that's what seems right to me.

Regarding inside-out objects - very nice. Reminds me of the old days, before OOP, where if your program had three veteran soldiers, you'll have 3 places in the num_limbs array, 3 places in the medals array, etc. That's doing OO without too much fancy OO syntax, but also without too much hassle.

---

PS - off topic: It's Yom Kippur here in Israel, a day that is devoted to contemplating our sins and mistakes in the now-ending jewish year, and a time of asking and giving forgiveness and making peace with each other. So - I sincerely apologize for any post that was too much off topic or too stupid, for posts where I said wrong things, etc.

---

---

Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!

Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.

Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.

Please read these before you post! —

• How do I compose an effective node title?
• How do I post a question effectively?
• Markup in the Monastery

Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:

a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr

You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)

	For:		Use:
	&		&
	<		&lt;
	>		&gt;
	[		&#91;
	]		&#93;

Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?

See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.