I've found a module called FEAR::API, which is a mix of LWP::UserAgent, WWW::Mechanize & friends, and realized that it heavily uses overload operators to do many things, such as: 
fetch("google.com") > my $content;

# also:
fetch("google.com") | _print;

# and even:
url("google.com")->() >> _self | _save_as_tree("./root");
$_->() | _save_as_tree("./root") while $_;

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For the sake of maintainability, ease of reading and best practices, do you think this kind of interface is a good design?

Isn't it misleading to use the ">" operator to write contents of something into a variable? Isn't it much cleaner to have something like this: 

my $content = fetch("google.com");

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And what about this: 
url("google.com")->() >> _self | _save_as_tree("./root");

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Aren't any of these options better: 
# hmmm, looks confusing:
save_as_tree("./root", fetch( url("google.com") ) ); 

# chained calls, but still confusing:
url("google.com")->fetch()->save_as_tree("./root"); 

# full OO:
my $url = Some::Module::Name->new( url => "google.com" );
$url->fetch;
$url->save_as_tree("./root");

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I've never written a Perl module that used overload and I believe I've used only a few modules that had it. So is it just me because I'm not used to it, or is this an example of overload abuse?

Shouldn't the ">" operator be used only to compare things, where that "thing" could be an object and its class could implement a specific comparision method?

For example, a class called Person could overload ">" when comparing two Person instances, and the comparision would be based on the age of each person.

Please let me know what your thoughts about this subject are.

PS: I have not read PBP completely yet, there must be something about this over there...

In reply to Overload abuse or is it just me? by salvix

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