After having read an impressive meditation by eyepopslikeamosquito here The 10**21 Problem (Part 2) I went on a bit of a walk-about through CPAN; Not looking for anything in particular, just looking.

Along the way I ran into a Moose, which was a bit of a surprise. I had heard of this creature in the world of Perl, had seen references to it, read a bit about it. But my understanding was that is was one of those 'Object' creatures which I have, for a long time, 'Object'ed to.

Not for any good reason I guess. Mostly because God and everyone had been talking about object oriented programming as if the worlds existence prior to its appearance was somehow miraculous. "How did people get anything done?". Being the obstinate type, I plodded along shaking my head and writing my procedural code, getting the job done without accessors, roles, classes, instances, methods or any of the other goofy constructs that generated a whole new way of talking about code. I liked(and still do like) my simple variables, and sub-routines.

But that illusion is finally to be set aside. My obstinate Luddite attitude, I have to admit finally, is being undermined by my use of all those handy CPAN modules that make it possible for me to talk to databases, coerce odd date representations into something I consider readable, deliver web pages and data for them, etc... .

Yes, I am finally, after reading perlootut and perlobj, ready to admit that the goddamn OO stuff is useful, and I probably should have been learning it instead of ignoring it.

All this from a wander through CPAN... And then I find it... The ultimate module! The one which inspires me to realize that I might as well go a head and learn something new after all this time. Someday, I might write a module with this level of elegance...something so fundamental that it leaves observers with nothing but the unanswerable question 'Why?'. It will not generate debate like our current Voting Booth subject. Nor will it genearate heady (worth-while, informative) study like the one previously mentioned that started tonights personal Chautauqua.

A module which is, and does and contributes like this one. Some day... . Someday, I will achieve M!