Basil, You mention that:
"One also must take the time to understand HOW the module works" I think that this sends out the wrong message to beginners who are already afraid of using modules. The whole point of using a module is that you don't need to know HOW it works, only WHAT it does. That is the guts of OO programming, and the beauty of it too. If you don't want to improve on a module or add to it or customise it or whatever, then you don't need to know how it works - that'll be a complete waste of time. In OO speak, not knowing HOW a module does its job is called encapsulation - data hiding. You can send off a request to some other entity which you know (if you've read the documentation) will do what you want, so there's no need to know the inner workings of that entity. This is probably one of the most integral and important facets of OO. Now I know that not all modules are reliable, but after using modules for a while, you can roughly sus out which modules are reliable and which aren't. If you see a module with absolutely no documentation and messy code, then yeah, you probably wouldn't want to use that. But if you come across a prominent module, cleanly coded and documented, then by all means give it a go. Chances are it will work much better than something you write yourself. Modules are GOOD things. Anyone involved in the programming industry that doesn't acknowledge that must be constantly working on trivial, very small programs. Jason and Jenda, I completely agree with everything you've said about this matter. Mk -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Basil Daoust Sent: Tuesday, 3 December 2002 9:20 AM To: King, Jason G Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: regex question My problem with MODULES is you must also install them everywhere, if you use one that is outside the default installation. Of course the PASRE is not in the category with Activeperl. One also must take the time to understand HOW the module works. I quickly scanned PARSE when I went to use it and used a tag of <TD> but that in retrospect seems to have been the wrong tag to use. Maybe had I used TD instead I would have been happy with the module. A situation that it would have been nice if the module did what I wanted not what I said :-) I also find it annoying, that all modules are NOT run with -w and strict enforced. Geez, if you gonna make it public and all shouldn't ya take the time to crush the undefined, and other annoyances? Though I agree, if the module is easy to use. And does what you want, then by all means use it. But if you only need to write three lines of code that will get the job done for 99% of the work. Is it worth hunting for the right module and learning that module to get it done days later instead of in 10 minutes? It depends. Basil _______________________________________________ ActivePerl mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe: http://listserv.ActiveState.com/mailman/mysubs _______________________________________________ ActivePerl mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe: http://listserv.ActiveState.com/mailman/mysubs
