Re: RFC 357 (v1) Perl should use XML for documentation instead of POD

[Andrew Wilson]

On Thu, Oct 05, 2000 at 11:47:46AM +0200, Philip Newton wrote:
> On 4 Oct 2000, at 14:06, John Porter wrote:
> 
> > I am of the opinion that any documentation which requires, or at least
> > would significantly benefit from, the use of something heavy like SGML
> > is best done OUTSIDE THE CODE.  There's no reason you can't have 
> > document files accompanying the perl code files, for gosh sakes.
> 
> I disagree slightly. One of the benefits of Pod is that it can be 
> intermingled with Perl code;

I don't think you're disagreeing here.  What he said (as I read it) is 
Pod is good for when you want to add documentation beside your code.  If you
want to anything heavier than Pod allows, then use an external file - but leave
Pod alone.

>                              there's no need to have it be all in one 
> piece. This can be used to good advantage by having the pod for 
> each function be places just above that function, thus simultaneously 
> helping to document the code. If the pod (or whatever) is in a 
> separate file, this advantage is lost.

John wasn't saying abandon Pod, he was saying if you want to use XML or
whatever then there's nothing to stop you putting it in another file.

Cheers

Andrew