Re^2: Object inheritance without AUTOLOAD

[tilly]

I see that you don't read my posts. :-P

For an idea of what Larry Wall planned on using AUTOLOAD for, see Shell.

But that said, I agree that AUTOLOAD is a sledgehammer not to be used lightly. However I'd disagree with you on whether you need to use a custom can if you use AUTOLOAD. See Why breaking can() is acceptable for a fuller explanation of my views.

[diotalevi]

Oh ok fine. I use Shell myself but rarely if ever think of it. So you got me. There are other uses for AUTOLOAD than I mentioned and the ones you mentioned are actually useful. I was thinking of the common use of AUTOLOAD to delay method generation. Its that practice that I see is completely out of whack and that I'm thinking of when I complain about people who use AUTOLOAD.

It also occurs to me that using AUTOLOAD in the way I actually complained about exerts addition runtime penalties that would not normally exist - the entire method cache is invalided whenever the newly generated function is assigned into place.