On 10/2/00 4:44 PM, John Barnette wrote:
> * Advanced concepts that POD cannot contain that the XML junkies
> might want to be used can be embedded. (=for XML)
Yeah, but then you get =for HTML, =for XML, =for 3DHOLOGRAM, whatever. No
one does that because no one wants to make 50 versions of the table they
have in their docs, one for each document type they happen to be able to
think of at the moment. The do it in ASCII art an are done with it because
they realize the futility of making 5 different versions. POD is supposed
to be the common format that can be transformed into other representations.
Instead, you have to add the different representations yourself if you do
anything remotely complex.
People are looking for POD alternatives because doing complex things in POD
is so hard and/or annoying. And those that do add neat little =for HTML
bits so their docs look nice in pod2html or whatever are basically
pigeonholing themselves in the land of HTML. What everyone wants here is
some standard format that is rich enough to be converted to anything: a
format that can handle complex items like tables and hyperlinks and embedded
images and all that good stuff. "It can be done" in POD, but there are so
many varying ways to do it that it creates a barrier to users. So people
stick to Plain Old POD, sans fancy =for business, 90% of the time.
XML is probably not the answer, but I really do think POD needs to evolve
along with the rest of Perl.
-John
