Mammoth constructors have absolutely nothing to do with inheritance. Inheritance is, for all practical purposes, determined when using the two-part form of bless. Nothing more, nothing less. Here's an example:

package Foo;

sub new {
    my $class = shift;
    my %options = @_;

    my $self = {};

    # Do 1000 lines of stuff with %options

    return bless $self, $class;
}

package Bar;

use base 'Foo';
# A bunch of stuff goes here, but NO new() method!

package main;

my $object = Bar->new(
    # A bunch of named parameters go here
);
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Named parameters, inheritance, and a bunch of stuff in a constructor. No sweat.

Now, if you wanted to have all your objects use a very basic constructor, let me show you the basics of what I do:

package My::Base::Class;

sub new
{
    my $class = shift;

    my $self = bless {}, $class;

    (@_ % 2) && die "Odd number of parameters passed to new()";
    my %options = @_;

    while (my ($k, $v) = each %options)
    {
        next unless $self->can($k);
        $self->$k($v);
    }

    return $self;
}
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I assume that a mutator has been created with the same name as the parameter being passed in and that you want to assign the value to the attribute corresponding to the mutator. Very simple, very easy ... no fuss - no muss. If everything inherits from My::Base::Class, then everything gets that constructor. Named parameters, inheritance, and no boilerplate constructor.

Now, you're going to want more flexibility than that, so you might create an init() hook. You might auto-generate mutators based on a method call at compile time. There's all sorts of sugar you can add to this. But, at the heart, this is all you really need.

Mammoth constructors have absolutely nothing to do with inheritance. Inheritance is, for all practical purposes, determined when using the two-part form of bless. Nothing more, nothing less. Here's an example:

No offense, but when I mix concepts, I *mean* to mix concepts :) I don't need the CS 1 / CS 2 intro to OO class. I could teach the class (just not in Perl). Perl's OO syntax isn't pure as it should be (yet), so it takes some effort to figure out the idioms -- which has never been the case in any other language supporting OO that I've picked up.

But yes, the init hook suggested in the above replies (especially Class::Method_Maker) is what I want. Java and C++ can make use of super constructors, the init hook is exactly what I was asking about, as my named parameter implementation as the OP (sans init hook), had a few glitches that would not provide the things init() provides.

Essentially my requirements were three-fold: (A) keep the code clean (solved: MethodMaker), (B) No long mamoth constructors, so named params help (solved: hash), (C) need instructors to benefit from inheritance (solved: init hook). Success. However arriving at this was an experience!