The module is tentatively titled Classname::Constructor. It's used like this:

package Some::Other::Class;
use Classname::Constructor;

sub new {
  # whatever
}
[download]

In this case, behind the scenes during import, it just installs a closure function Class() to the Some::Other namespace like this:

sub import { 
    my $caller = caller(0);
    $caller = "::$caller" if $caller !~ m{::};
    no strict 'refs';
    *{$caller} = sub { unshift @_, $caller; goto &{"$caller\::new"} };
}
[download]

As a feature, if the class name is just a single word, it installs that as a function to the main package, and it's called like this:

package Wherever;

use OneWordClass;
my $obj = ::OneWordClass( \%options );
[download]

Obviously, this approach has issues if the last part of the package name collides with a function name in the parent package namespace, but that may be a limitation people are willing to accept or work around.

So what do you think? Useful? Nuts? Do you have name suggestions? (Acme?)

Your thoughts are greatly appreciated.

Update:

Ouch! As grinder points out, meryln has been there before and the sticky point is that this breaks class methods without some complicated workarounds. (Mental note: reread perlop on precedence of ->.) The version I show above also happens to break inheritance, but that's easy to fix.

Perhaps an alternative might be to export a function that resembles the class name, replacing "::" with "_". That avoids all but the strangest potential collison, and doesn't interfere with normal class methods.

use Some::Other::Class;

my $obj = Some_Other_Class( \%options );
[download]

For those who prefer a constructor other than new, that could be supported with a parameter during "use".

use Classname::Constructor 'create';
[download]