Dear Friends (and Enemies) of version.pm - As you may already be aware, we are on a push to get Perl 5.10.1 out the door. In support of this, I have updated the version.pm code in both Module::Build and core Perl (and which has been pulled into maint-5.10). This is primarily an API rewrite (renaming qv -> declare and new -> parse), based on some very sensible suggestions from David Golden+++. There are a couple of bug fixes (to do with locales), but the underlying code is largely identical to what shipped in Perl 5.10.0.
However, before I can finalize and release 0.77 to CPAN, the POD must be rewritten. I fully and freely admit that the documentation for version.pm has not had the same care and feeding that the code itself. And I have a tendency to be long-winded (c.f. this email). So I need _your_ help! I've split the docs into two pieces: 1) version.pod = the bare minimum information that a module author needs to know to use version.pm in his/her own code 2) version/Internals.pod = all the messy implementation details, internal representations, etc. I think that #1 is close, but I've been staring at this code for n+1 years and my biases are showing. I would really appreciate anyone who cares about versioning to take a look at that file and tell me if you can understand it. Better yet, rewrite some portion of it and send me a diff (and to these two lists so we don't duplicate effort). #2 is a largely unchanged copy of the original POD file. I'm going to take a chainsaw to it RSN and rip out the bits that are now in #1. I also have the beginnings of a simple script to make it easier for a CPAN author to switch from decimal to dotted-decimal format, without confusing either themselves or the users. Any help you can give me, even just a quick read through #1 and a detailed criticism would be greatly appreciated. However, this isn't an opportunity to discuss design decisions; the basic implementation is what it is, it's been released in Perl 5.10.0 and it _can't_ change now. We /can/ add compatibility API (which is what David Golden wisely suggested) that makes it more obvious what is the right thing to do. If you want to help, the files are here: https://svn.perl.org/modules/version/trunk/lib/version.pod and https://svn.perl.org/modules/version/trunk/lib/version/Internals.pod or you can just check out https://svn.perl.org/modules/version/trunk to get the whole thing. Thanks in advance for your assistance... John
