Re: RFC 171 (v2) my Dog $spot should call a constructor implicitly

On Fri, Sep 01, 2000 at 09:09:15AM -0700, Nathan Wiger wrote:
> First off, I think everyone is reading this RFC with the wrong mindset,
>    my Dog $spot;
>    print ref $spot;    # 'Dog'
>    $spot = new Dalmation;
> 
> No reason this wouldn't still work. The term 'constructor' here is
> misleading. 'creator' is what I prefer, and that's also why I prefer
> CREATE.

It will work, but not the way you're expecting (I don't think).

Given:

    package Dog;

    sub CREATE { bless({ name => undef }, shift) }
    sub name   {
        my $self = shift;
        if (@_) {
            return $self->{'name'} = shift;
        }

        return $self->{'name'};
    }


I've annotated what the code does:

    my Dog $spot;           # $spot is now a blessed Dog object
    $spot->name("Fido");    # $spot->{'name'} eq "Fido"

    print ref $spot;        # yes, "Dog"

    $spot = new Dalmation;  # now $spot is a Dalmation object


> At least, this is my take on it. CREATE would border right on the edge
> of internals, taking care of stuff that you normally wouldn't handle
> with new() anyways. Since it's a sub, you can put whatever you want into
> it, but CREATE != new() philosophically.

Unfortunately (because everyone seems to disagree with me) CREATE (or
PREPARE, or NEW, or author-defined) is new().

 
> And of course, Me != Michael, so I don't want to put too many words in
> his RFC. However, this is my take on it. I'm writing a massive RFC right
> now that tries to tie this all together. It's actually quite coherent,
> but when little bits and pieces are leaked admittedly it sounds
> disjointed.

Well, I guess I'll wait until that RFC comes out before asking you what
CREATE does, exactly, in your world.  :)


Michael
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