Re^5: stronger than eval?

[mreece]

if the method is called use or require, then yes, i am ok with that, even when it results in dying if you try $obj->use because you did not define your own use method on that class (which is what would typically happen anyway, except with a different error).

the more exceptional case would be when you expected to handle use or require methods via AUTOLOAD, but i would never expect such so adding these methods to UNIVERSAL is ok with me.

[perrin]

I have to agree with diotalevi on this: there is no good reason for this to be done through UNIVERSAL::. It's just a simple utility method. It does not need to be added to every namespace automatically.

[ikegami]

I agree too. For example,

use UNIVERSAL::require ();

Cache::File->use()
   or print "error: $@";

could be written as

use Module::Loader qw( load );

load Cache::File
   or print "error: $@";

Just as readable. Just as simple. No polution of UNIVERSAL::. And with the right prototype, load's argument doesn't even need to be quoted.

Update: The module I made up above already exists as Module::Load!
Update: Module::Load dies instead of returning false.

[diotalevi]

Ok, fine, I guess. What's also missing is that there's no need to implement this with UNIVERSAL:: pollution. This could have just been a "smarter" use and require function named something appropriate and it wouldn't have caused issues for other objects. I have sympathy for features that are best (or perhaps only) implemented by polluting UNIVERSAL:: but this isn't one of them.