On Sun, Sep 10, 2000 at 09:22:39PM -0700, Nathan Wiger wrote:
> Regardless of my huge error above, this doesn't change the fact that
> this is exactly what tie() does currently in Perl 5. That is:
>
> tie @a, 'Matrix';
> push @a, $stuff;
>
> Now changes the meaning of push() in the current package. So the only
> real difference in this situation from a user standpoint is that "PUSH"
> becomes "push" per the RFC, plus they can now do this with any function
> they please.
Things like push(), exists(), etc... all have well defined meanings.
If you add a push() method to your tied class its going to be for
putting stuff onto the end of a list. Methods which override built-in
functions are obvious enough.
However, anything which is *not* a built-in, may only share its name
and nothing else.
use Some::Module qw(do_something);
tie @a, 'Matrix;
do_something @a;
Harmless enough. But what happens if do_something() looks like this:
sub do_something {
my @a = @_;
add @a, qw(some stuff);
}
If Matrix has an add() method, then it will interfere with
Some::Module::add() and cause do_something() to do something really,
really different than what was expected. The problem is that
Matrix::add() and Some::Module::add() are related by name *only* and
are not interchangable.
The danger is of methods unintentionally being called in place of
unrelated functions.
--
Michael G Schwern http://www.pobox.com/~schwern/ [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Just Another Stupid Consultant Perl6 Kwalitee Ashuranse
MORONS!
