/ 
Acme-Tao-0.03
River stage zero No dependents
/ Acme::Tao

NAME

Acme::Tao - strongly suggests proper respect for the Tao

SYNOPSIS

use Acme::Tao;

or

use Acme::Tao qw(something_that_must_not_be_constant);

DESCRIPTION

Everyone knows that the Tao is not constant. But some people just might not get it. To make sure no one tries to use constant Tao in a program with your module, put a use Acme::Tao at the top of your code. If Tao has been made constant by time your module is used, Acme::Tao may die with a nice message. Note that the package in which Tao is constant is irrelavent.

On a walk between shrines in Nikko, Japan, I had an epiphany: if the Tao is not constant, than neither should Acme::Tao be constant.

The Tao doesn't take sides;
it gives birth to both wins and losses.

Acme::Tao doesn't take sides either, at least not consistently. It will sometimes die and sometimes not (50% chance of it doing so), in accordance with its understanding of the nature of the Tao.

As Lao-tzu teaches, "The name that can be named is not the constant name," and Acme::Tao can *also* be used to check for any other symbols you might not want to have as constants. When used in this fashion, it will always try to work.

For example:

use Acme::Tao qw(foo);

This will die if foo is defined as a constant in the current package.

use Acme::Tao qw(::foo);

This will die if foo is defined as a constant in the main:: package. This is the same as main::foo.

If Acme::Tao is checking for particular symbols, it will not check for a constant Tao.

MESSAGES

The messages are stored in @__PACKAGE__::messages. Feel free to add to them. You can even subclass Acme::Tao:

package My::Tao;

use Acme::Tao ();
use vars(@messages @ISA);

@ISA = qw(Acme::Tao);

@messages = ( ... );

1;
__END__

The messages will come from the appropriate package and are not cumulative.

AUTHOR

James G. Smith, <jsmith@cpan.org>

I owe Kip Hampton a big thank you for mentioning the idea in passing and assisting with parts of the documentation.

The messages are lifted from the fortune data files.

COPYRIGHT

Copyright (C) 2002, 2004 James G. Smith.

This module is free software. It may be used, redistributed, and/or modified under the same terms as Perl.