Subject: ANNOUNCE: Alias-2.0 - give that data a name
From: [email-masked] (Gurusamy Sarathy)
Date: 1 Jan 1996 17:48:19 GMT
Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl.announce,comp.lang.perl.misc

A new version of "Alias", the perl module that provides easy aliasing
functionality, is now available from:

   http://www-personal.umich.edu/~gsar/Alias-2.0.tar.gz

and from most CPAN sites when the mirrors catch up.

Perl5.001m or later is required.

You may find this module useful if you:

   * are tired of dereferencing hash-based object attributes

   * wish perl could make-do with fewer $, -> and {} things 

   * are a little scared of using typeglobs

   * want the freedom to put what you want, when you want in
     the symbol table, without having to deal with wierd syntax

   * need to use constants in your program since you don't
     trust yourself from changing $PI 

This release has the all-new C<attr> function that installs a whole hash on
the symbol table with implicit localization. This allows you to access
object attributes without having to deref the object everytime, as in most
other OO languages.

The C<attr> functionality might rightfully belong in the perl core, but I am
making it available as part of this module for folks to see what it "feels
like" to have it first.  If you feel strongly one way or the other, let 
me know.

It would be interesting to benchmark how much less/more efficient C<attr> is
when compared to regular hash access of object attributes under various
degrees of use.

Comments are always very welcome.

 - Sarathy.
   [email-masked]