Alter objects get garbage collection and thread support from Perl, the class has nothing to do with that. Destructors can be freely used for other purposes.

An Alter-object carries all its data with it, ready to dump and able to be restored

I think these are only true if the object reference is a hash/array that stores the references for each class. If so, you give up encapsulation and the ability to do "black box" (aka "foreign") inheritance.

No, that's not so. An Alter object stores its data in a hash that is magically (in the technical sense) attatched to the object (which can be of any type). Magic is unique in that it is inaccessible to normal Perl (except through the interface you want to provide), but is serviced in garbage collection and thread cloning.

Anno

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