What is the difference between new Some::Class and Some::Class->new() in Perl?

Question

Many years ago I remember a fellow programmer counselling this:

new Some::Class;    # bad! (but why?)

Some::Class->new(); # good!

Sadly

Answer 1

The indirect object syntax is frowned upon, for good reasons, but that's got nothing to do with constructors. You're almost never going to have a new() function in the calling package. Rather, you should use Package->new() for two other (better?) reasons:

1. As you said, all other class methods take the form Package->method(), so consistency is a Good Thing

2. If you're supplying arguments to the constructor, or you're taking the result of the constructor and immediately calling methods on it (if e.g. you don't care about keeping the object around), it's simpler to say e.g.

$foo = Foo->new(type => 'bar', style => 'baz');
Bar->new->do_stuff;

than

$foo = new Foo(type => 'bar', style => 'baz');
(new Bar)->do_stuff;