Object Oriented Perl: A Comprehensive Guide to Concepts and Programming Techniques [Paperback]

Damian Conway (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 2000

Techniques and tricks to master basic and advanced OO Perl for programmers who already have basic to intermediate skills in procedural Perl.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Perl has always been a powerful and popular programming language, but with its new object capabilities, it can do even more. Written for anyone with a little Perl experience, Damian Conway's Object Oriented Perl provides an invaluable guide to virtually every aspect of object-oriented programming in Perl.

The most notable thing about Object Oriented Perl is Conway's excellent perspective on object-oriented concepts and how they are implemented in Perl. This book does a remarkable job of cutting through traditional jargon and illustrating how basic object-oriented design techniques are handled in Perl. (A useful appendix attests to the author's wide-ranging knowledge, with a comparison of Smalltalk, Eiffel, C++, and Java with Perl, including a summary of object-oriented syntax for each.) This book also features a truly excellent review of basic Perl syntax.

Throughout this text, the author shows you the basics of solid object design (illustrated using classes that model music CDs). Basic concepts like inheritance and polymorphism get thorough and clear coverage. The book also points out common mistakes and provides many tips for navigating the powerful and flexible (yet sometimes tricky) nuances of using Perl objects. For instance, Conway shows how to achieve true data encapsulation in Perl (which generally allows calls across modules) as well as its natural support for generic programming techniques.

He also pays special attention to popular object modules available from CPAN (like Class::MethodmakerK, which simplifies declaring classes) and discusses performance issues and the tradeoff between programming convenience and speed often faced by today's Perl developer. Advanced chapters cover a number of techniques for adding persistence and invoking methods using multiple dispatching.

Filled with syntactic tips and tricks, Object Oriented Perl is a sure bet for any programmer who wants to learn how to use Perl objects effectively. --Richard Dragan

Topics covered: Perl language review, CPAN, Perl objects, 'blessing' and inheritance, polymorphism, Class::Struct and Class::Methodmaker modules, Perl ties and closures, operator overloading, encapsulation, multiple dispatch, Class::Multimethods, coarse-grained and fine-grained object persistence techniques, performance issues.

From Library Journal

Originally designed as a simple scripting language, Perl is now a full-fledged object-oriented programming language. Conway's guide discusses for experienced Perl programmers object-oriented design concepts and how they work in Perl. For academic and larger public library computer science collections.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 490 pages
• Publisher: Manning Publications (January 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1884777791
• ISBN-13: 978-1884777790
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (48 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #92,855 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A fantastic addition to your Perl collection, July 14, 2000

By 

Douglas Welzel (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Object Oriented Perl: A Comprehensive Guide to Concepts and Programming Techniques (Paperback)

I was a bit skeptical when I was first handed a copy of Object Oriented Perl because I tend to be biased toward O'Reilly books. However, after reading it I felt it is one of the best Perl books I have come across. Most Perl books deal with Perl as a scripting language. Conway treats pull like a real development language. He gives the standard introduction to object orientation and objects in Perl and then quickly moves past this to look at some of the unique features of Perl's OO development in Perl. For example, he covers blessing every type of reference possible, why you would want to bless a particular type of reference and what the pros and cons are of each approach.

Conway also gives a very thorough coverage of implementating true data encapsulation in Perl and presents several methods for doing so.

Another thing that struck me about this book is Conway's attention to detail. In his code samples, he carefully explains why each line was written a certain way. He even notes which version of Perl a certain feature or module first appeared in.

All in all, a wonderful book. Even if you have been developing in Perl for a while this book has something to offer.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent for intermediate AND advanced programmers, March 4, 2000

By 

Sean Burke (Ketchikan, Alaska, United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Object Oriented Perl: A Comprehensive Guide to Concepts and Programming Techniques (Paperback)

/Object-Oriented Perl/ is miles ahead of any other book on OOP that I've ever seen. It sets a new standard in how concepts of OOP should be explained, and how they should be related to the language that the OOP framework is implemented in.

And the best thing about this book is that, on the way to explaining various OOP concepts, it manages to elucidate all sorts of non-OOP advanced programming techniques in Perl. So I recommend this book to anyone who's finished /Learning Perl/ and is looking for what to learn next.

It's a surprising achievement, and one that makes this book very worthwhile reading for people who don't even particularly care about OOP!

And, conversely, because /Object-Oriented Perl/ touches on so many of the possible approaches to OOP, I think that this book would be interesting to people who are interested in OOP, but not terribly interested in Perl per se.

It is, in short, a book of immediate as well as lasting value.

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Exhaustive and illustrative, May 25, 2000

By 

joe_n_bloe (Ester AK USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Object Oriented Perl: A Comprehensive Guide to Concepts and Programming Techniques (Paperback)

Conway's Object Oriented Perl is the definitive work on object-oriented Perl programming and will probably remain so for some time (if not indefinitely). It illustrates how to construct all manner of object-oriented frameworks in Perl and aptly demonstrates the wide range of styles that are possible--from simplistic to complex and constrained.

My only complaint about this work, which is more of an opinion that isn't relative to its rating, is that I think Perl programs are more beautiful and elegant when they don't embody complex scaffolding of the type that this book so ably describes. I see this book as a Perl counterpart to Coplien's Advanced C++, but in the case of C++, it's possible to bury scaffolding in a library out of sight in a way that isn't quite possible in Perl. I'm not sure how many Perl programmers actually know C++ (my experience is that it's a surprisingly small number) but I think that C++ is a language that tolerates and even demands such complexity in a way that Perl doesn't.

One thing for sure--the coverage of objects here is vastly superior to that in the turquoise Camel book (Programming Perl). I'm sorry, but I think the topic deserves more descriptive terminology than "thingy." Conway knows his concepts, knows how to execute them in Perl, and sets them down lucidly and, yes, exhaustively.

I'm not sure it's worth it in the long run, but that's just me, and obviously others see architectural tradeoffs differently. Meanwhile, this is an excellent, literate work that enhances both the capabilities of programmers and the stature of Perl. If nothing else, studying it will definitely improve your understanding of the language and idioms of Perl. But I would expect it to be more rewarding than that.