You could skip the method dispatch completely and call the sub as a sub. That is, in package person: 

sub introduce {
    my($self)=$_[0];
    print "Hello, I'm ";
#    $self->tellName();
    tellName( $self );
}

[download]

With this change only, the new code produces: 

Hello, I'm Alice.

Hi, I'm Billy The Kid.
Here's my mom: Hello, I'm Alice.

[download]

I don't recommend that in general, however. For the programmer who comes to your work later (probably you), this could be confusing.

Update: Another sort of lousy solution: 

package child;
sub tellName  {
    my($self)=$_[0];
    if ( caller eq __PACKAGE__ ) {
        print "$self->{'nickName'}.\n";
    }
    else {
        $self->SUPER::tellName();
    }
}

[download]

I don't think this is a whole lot better except that it's a lot more obvious that you've done something tricky. I really like ysth's recommendation that the child have a reference to a separate parent object.

In reply to Re: my $self is stumped! by kyle
in thread my $self is stumped! by headybrew

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