At 08:36 AM 10/4/00 -0700, Nathan Wiger wrote:
> > =head1 TITLE
> >
> > Perl should use XML for documentation instead of POD
>
> > =head1 VERSION
> >
> > Status: Frozen
>
>I'm sorry, I was gonna bite my lip, but I've gotta say: Freezing RFC's
>like this when the following is true:
>
> > A lot of good, heated discussion was generated on the mailing lists. The
> > majority seems against using XML-DTD documentation, but granted there are
> > deficiencies in POD.
>
>Is absolutely, 100% against the entire idea of the RFC process. They're
>"Requests for Comments". The comments received were overwhelmingly "This
>is a Bad Idea".
I gotta disagree. You'll note that he requested comments, got comments,
and reported the tone and results of those comments in v2.
Also, he made no other changes, and got v2 in place 4 days after v1, 2 days
after the 1 October deadline. Would you have been able to make the sort of
revisions you are suggesting below under that sort of time pressure? I
know I wouldn't, based on my experience with my RFCs.
Retracting would have been easier, but could very well be seen as giving up
on pointing out PODs deficiencies.
>This RFC should either be retracted, or revised into:
>
> POD to XML translation should be easier
>
>or
>
> POD should be made more flexible
>
>or
>
> Here are some deficiencies in POD that need to be fixed
>
>But freezing something that everyone's against is a waste of everyone's
>time. Sorry, but it is.
>
>And yes, I've retracted 7 of my own RFC's because the community was
>against them. The whole point of this Perl 6 process is to develop a
>language that the community thinks is the right direction, right?
>Sometimes that means accepting that no matter how much you like your
>idea, other Perl'ers don't.
The RFCs are not the end-all of Perl development. As you stated, they are
"Requests For Comments", and not every frozen RFC will get accepted by the
community. Not every RFC -can- be accepted by the community; I think there
are some pairs that are mutually exclusive, and intentionally so. Compare
RFC 126 (Ensuring Perl's Object Oriented Future) and RFC 137 (Perl II
should not be fundamentally changed). At most one of those two will "win",
since they have different philosophies for Perl6 OO development. Hopefully
Perl6 will be the real winner.
Do you expect that your 7 retracted RFCs to be looked at by future
developers? Even if they had good, but unpopular, points to make? Or do
you expect that once retracted, they will be ignored?
I think retracted RFCs -will- be ignored. Better to have a frozen RFC that
says "no one liked my solution, but most agreed the problems existed", that
gets those problems documented and -looked at- than to have the problems
detailed in something most will summarily ignore.
>-Nate
