"[The abstraction layer called SPOPS, for Simple Perl Object Persistence with Security,] allows you to use any supported data store to fetch, create, update and remove objects. Current data stores include DBI (which supports most SQL databases), GDBM and configuration files. However, SPOPS can be easily extended to support CORBA objects, LDAP directories or even simple text files. ... SPOPS exploits the power of perl as a glue language and allows coders to use a common paradigm (object-as-hashref) to perform some amazing tasks."