Perl implementation of the "Adapter" Design Pattern

 The Class::Adapter class is intended as an abstract base class for creating
 any sort of class or object that follows the Adapter pattern.
 .
 The term Adapter refers to a "Design Pattern" of the same name, from the
 famous "Gang of Four" book "Design Patterns". Although their original
 implementation was designed for Java and similar single-inheritance
 strictly-typed langauge, the situation for which it applies is still valid.
 .
 An Adapter in this Perl sense of the term is when a class is created to
 achieve by composition (objects containing other object) something that can't
 be achieved by inheritance (sub-classing).
 .
 This is similar to the Decorator pattern, but is intended to be applied on a
 class-by-class basis, as opposed to being able to be applied one object at a
 time, as is the case with the Decorator pattern.