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/cvs/common-sense/sense.pm
Revision: 1.6
Committed: Thu Jul 9 18:09:08 2009 UTC (15 years ago) by root
Branch: MAIN
CVS Tags: rel-0_03
Changes since 1.5: +1 -1 lines
Log Message:
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File Contents

# User Rev Content
1 root 1.1 =head1 NAME
2    
3     common::sense - save a tree AND a kitten, use common::sense!
4    
5     =head1 SYNOPSIS
6    
7     use common::sense;
8    
9     # roughly the same as, with much lower memory usage:
10     #
11     # use strict qw(vars subs);
12     # use feature qw(say state switch);
13     # no warnings;
14    
15     =head1 DESCRIPTION
16    
17     This module implements some sane defaults for Perl programs, as defined by
18     two typical (or not so typical - use your common sense) specimens of
19     Perl coders.
20    
21     =over 4
22    
23 root 1.4 =item no warnings
24    
25     The dreaded warnings. Even worse, the horribly dreaded C<-w> switch. Even
26     though we don't care if other people use warnings (and certainly there are
27     useful ones), a lot of warnings simply go against the spirit of Perl, most
28     prominently, the warnings related to C<undef>. There is nothing wrong with
29     C<undef>: it has well-defined semantics, it is useful, and spitting out
30     warnings you never asked for is just evil.
31    
32     So every module needs C<no warnings> to avoid somebody accidentally using
33     C<-w> and forcing his bad standards on our code. No will do.
34    
35     Funnily enough, L<perllexwarn> explicitly mentions C<-w> (and not in a
36     favourable way), but standard utilities, such as L<prove>, or MakeMaker
37     when running C<make test> enable them blindly.
38    
39 root 1.1 =item use strict qw(subs vars)
40    
41     Using C<use strict> is definitely common sense, but C<use strict
42     'refs'> definitely overshoots it's usefulness. After almost two
43     decades of Perl hacking, we decided that it does more harm than being
44     useful. Specifically, constructs like these:
45    
46     @{ $var->[0] }
47    
48 root 1.4 Must be written like this (or similarly), when C<use strict 'refs'> is in
49     scope, and C<$var> can legally be C<undef>:
50 root 1.1
51     @{ $var->[0] || [] }
52    
53     This is annoying, and doesn't shield against obvious mistakes such as
54     using C<"">, so one would even have to write:
55    
56     @{ defined $var->[0] ? $var->[0] : [] }
57    
58     ... which nobody with a bit of common sense would consider
59     writing. Curiously enough, sometimes, perl is not so strict, as this works
60     even with C<use strict> in scope:
61    
62     for (@{ $var->[0] }) { ...
63    
64     If that isnt hipocrasy! And all that from a mere program!
65    
66     =item use feature qw(say state given)
67    
68     We found it annoying that we always have to enable extra features. If
69     something breaks because it didn't anticipate future changes, so be
70     it. 5.10 broke almost all our XS modules and nobody cared either - and few
71     modules that are no longer maintained work with newer versions of Perl,
72     regardless of use feature.
73    
74 root 1.4 If your code isn't alive, it's dead, jim.
75 root 1.1
76     =item much less memory
77    
78     Just using all those pragmas together waste <blink>I<< B<776> kilobytes
79     >></blink> of precious memory in my perl, for I<every single perl process
80 root 1.3 using our code>, which on our machines, is a lot. In comparison, this
81     module only uses I<< B<four> >> kilobytes (I even had to write it out so
82     it looks like more) of memory on the same platform.
83 root 1.1
84     The money/time/effort/electricity invested in these gigabytes (probably
85     petabytes globally!) of wasted memory could easily save 42 trees, and a
86     kitten!
87    
88     =cut
89    
90 root 1.2 package common::sense;
91 root 1.1
92 root 1.2 our $VERSION = '0.03';
93 root 1.1
94 root 1.2 sub import {
95 root 1.3 # no warnings
96 root 1.2 ${^WARNING_BITS} ^= ${^WARNING_BITS};
97 root 1.3
98     # use strict vars subs
99     $^H |= 0x00000600;
100    
101     # use feature
102     $^H{feature_switch} =
103     $^H{feature_say} =
104     $^H{feature_state} = 1;
105 root 1.1 }
106    
107     1;
108    
109     =back
110    
111 root 1.5 =head1 THERE IS NO 'no common::sense'!!!! !!!! !!
112 root 1.4
113     This module doesn't offer an unimport. First of all, it wastes even more
114     memory, second, and more importantly, who with even a bit of common sense
115     would want no common sense?
116    
117 root 1.5 =head1 STABILITY AND FUTURE VERSIONS
118    
119     Future versions might change just about everything in this module. We
120     might test our modules and upload new ones working with newer versions of
121     this module, and leave you standing in the rain because we didn't tell
122     you.
123    
124     Most likely, we will pick a few useful warnings, instead of just disabling
125     all of them. And maybe we will load some nifty modules that try to emulate
126     C<say> or so with perls older than 5.10 (this module, of course, should
127     work with older perl versions - supporting 5.8 for example is just common
128 root 1.6 sense at this time. Maybe not in the future, but of course you can trust
129 root 1.5 our common sense).
130    
131 root 1.1 =head1 AUTHOR
132    
133     Marc Lehmann <schmorp@schmorp.de>
134     http://home.schmorp.de/
135    
136 root 1.4 Robin Redeker, "<elmex at ta-sa.org>".
137    
138    
139 root 1.1 =cut
140