Personally when I see AST I think of VMS and A-Synchronous Traps.
I notice that a google search shows the achronym AST is used for many
computer related things besides abstract syntax trees.
The CPAN rules suggest avoiding achronyms.
On the other hand I find the name SQL::AbstractSyntaxTree to be pretty
much self explanatory, unlike the shorter variations, and the only issue
is that is a little bit long. I'm not sure that shortening the name of
the module is a sensible "optimization" of anything.
The code a programmer needs to write could still be be pleasantly terse
$ast = new SQL::AbstractSyntaxTree();
$ast->Method()... etc.
$0.02
