Re: Re: Thoughts On Object-Oriented Module Design. Input Sought.

[gloryhack]

Side question: I'm currently debating with myself over when it's appropriate for a method to report an error to STDERR on its own instead of just passing back an error code to the caller and letting them decide whether to report it or not. Thoughts?

I believe that most of the time, methods within a module should not screw around with their environment. However, if reporting to STDERR is seen as convenient, I prefer a module that will provide a switch to turn STDERR reporting on or off, defaulting to the off state.

When I encounter a module that insists upon spewing at STDERR, I add to my own code a method for redirecting STDERR to /dev/null, and turn it on at the same point at which I comment-out the uses of the strict and diagnostics pragmas.

I think that by providing the switch in your modules, you allow your user to operate more completely within TMTOWTDI space.