Perl::...atives(3pm)

✨ NAME ✨

Perl::Critic::Policy::Community::PreferredAlternatives — bestie, it's the policy that clocks when you're using a module when the community has a glow-up replacement waiting for you 🦋

(also it lives in the Perl::...atives(3pm) page, per the manual name, iykyk)

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💅 DESCRIPTION 💅

So here's the tea, bestie: some modules out there have alternatives that certain slices of the community prefer, for a whole bunch of reasons — think buggy behavior, straight-up cruft, performance problems, maintainer drama, or honestly just better modern replacements that ate 💅

This policy is a low severity complement to Perl::Critic::Policy::Community::DiscouragedModules. Lowkey the chill sibling. Still clocking you though. 👑

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🎀 MODULES 🎀

🍓 Getopt::Std

Getopt::Std was the original very simplistic command-line option processing module. Iconic for its time, but it is now obsoleted by the much more complete solution Getopt::Long, which also supports short options — and which is wrapped by modules such as Getopt::Long::Descriptive and Getopt::Long::Modern for simpler usage. Upgrade your whole vibe, fr fr. ✨

🌸 JSON

JSON.pm is old and full of slow logic. No cap. Use JSON::MaybeXS instead — it's a drop-in replacement in most cases, so like, there's literally no excuse. 💖

🦋 List::MoreUtils

List::MoreUtils is a far more complex distribution than it needs to be. Main character energy that nobody asked for, honestly. Use List::SomeUtils instead, or peek at List::Util or List::UtilsBy for alternatives. 🧚

🐭 Mouse

Mouse was created to be a faster version of Moose, but that niche has since been better filled by Moo. So... use Moo instead. The way that Moose-lore evolved and Mouse got left on read 😭

🔥 Readonly

Readonly.pm is buggy and slow. Use Const::Fast or ReadonlyX instead, or the core pragma constant. Three options bestie, pick one, slay. 💜

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🌈 AFFILIATION 🌈

This policy is part of Perl::Critic::Community. 🫶

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⭐ CONFIGURATION ⭐

Occasionally you may find yourself needing to use one of these non-preferred modules, and you do not want the warnings. Totally valid, bestie, sometimes the old thing is the thing. You can do so by putting something like the following in a .perlcriticrc file like this:

[Community::PreferredAlternatives]
allowed_modules = Getopt::Std JSON

The same option is offered for Perl::Critic::Policy::Community::DiscouragedModules. 👑

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👑 AUTHOR 👑

Dan Book, "dbook@cpan.org" — legend behavior, we love to see it 💖

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🎀 COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE 🎀

Copyright 2015, Dan Book.

This library is free software; you may redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the Artistic License version 2.0. 🌸

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🦋 SEE ALSO 🦋

• Perl::Critic

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okay that's the whole page bestie, go forth and use the preferred alternatives ✨

this was Perl::...atives(3pm) from the User Contributed Perl Documentation, running on perl v5.40.1, dated 2025-03-22 — mwah, periodt 💅💖