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Re: [PATCH] making Exporter simpler to use

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From:
Fergal Daly
Date:
February 11, 2003 11:09
Subject:
Re: [PATCH] making Exporter simpler to use
Message ID:
200302111910.12589.fergal@esatclear.ie
On Tuesday 11 February 2003 19:02, Brent Dax wrote:
> Fergal Daly:
> My big problem with this patch is that this is a *huge* interface
> change.  I'm worried about how hard this will fail if you use a module
> with an older Perl (is there a word for this?):

The old interface is still there, setting all the @EXPORT stuff by hand will 
still work, so it's not so much an interface change as an alternate 
interface. I suppose any module that wants to be widely used with older 
versions of perl will have to continue doing it by hand but I don't think 
that's a reason not to include it.

Many modules already require a certain version of perl and many people are in 
control of what version they use, they should be allowed use this new 
interface. Also, all the modules distributed with perl could take advantage. 
Many of them have already implemented parts of this. Any module that 
explicitly creates @EXPORT_OK or an :all tag will shrink.

I can add a big warning in the docs telling people to use the old interface if 
they want the whole world to be able to use their module.

Alternatively, I could just move the whole thing into EasyExporter or 
Exporter::Easy as it is totally independent of the guts of Exporter. That 
makes it easy for people to install it on an old version too.

Either way, it'd be nice to be able to delete lots of repititious code from 
the builtin modules and to one day not have to type that Exporter boilerplate 
anymore.

> It'll be *much* easier to get people to type 5.6 than 5.568.

Sounds good.

F

-- 
Do you need someone with lots of Unix sysadmin and/or lots of OO software 
development experience? Go on, giz a job.
My CV - http://www.fergaldaly.com/cv.html


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