Fellow Monks;

I have been trying to learn how to use Perl for a little over four months now. I can do; simple scripting, class creation, module usage. I have been learning alot of new things and tricks as well. My next task is to learn how do Object Oriented programming, and I want to use Perl to learn with.

...but is Perl an Objected Oriented Programming Language?

There are two main computer science guru's in my shop. I will use GURU_01, and GURU_02 as their labels. They both have loads of experiance and an awesome amount of knowledge to share. GURU_01 says that Perl is NOT an OO language, and should only be used as a 'glue' scripting language. GURU_02 says he doesn't know enough about Perl to make a descision. GURU_02 also says that there are four elements that make up an Object Oriented Language; Inheritance, Abstraction, PolyMorphism, and Encapsulation

Inheritance

I know that Perl supports inheritance, as I have seen it in some of merlyn's examples.

Abstraction

I believe that I have seen abstraction in other Perl modules (especially CPI.pm), but I cannot be sure. Hell, I think that I have even coded in astraction while writing a module for accessing a database.

Encapsulation

I believe that encapsulation exists in Perl (Modules, classes, etc), but I am not a computer scientist so I cannot be certain

Polymophism

I have not seen any thing on polymorpism in Perl.

My Questions

• Does Encapsulation exist in Perl? If so, are there any examples that you could point me to please?
• Does Polymorphism exist in Perl? Any examples are welcome
• Is Perl a true or psuedo OO Language?

I want to thank everyone in advance for their constructive critisim. I do not mind being RTFM'd, just please point me the the FM;)

Kristofer A. Hoch

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