On Mon, Nov 11, 2002 at 03:50:34PM -0800, Damien Neil wrote: > POD parsers also go to a fair amount of trouble to infer syntax. For > example, a function name like this() will be rendered differently by > many POD processors. This is a good thing, in that you don't have to > litter your documentation with a lot of C<> directives. This is a bad > thing, in that there aren't any formal rules on what patterns parsers > will match, so you're never quite certain what your document will end > up looking like.
This is a common complaint about Pod. The main problem is with the multiple Pod processors that use different inference rules. > I'd love to see a cleaner POD, with tables, better support for lists, > and the ability to turn syntax inferencing on a per-document basis. > Unfortunately, I don't think SDF is it. I *think* we're almost there. Sean Burke has been working on revamping Pod from the ground up for a few months now. He started with a clear spec on what should be inferred where and when (perlpodspec) and a series of modules and tools that obey those rules (Pod::SAX and his recent rewrite of pod2man and such). I haven't been keeping up with his efforts, but was among the many who mentioned the need to have "extensions" to Pod a few months ago. I believe that Sean and others are chomping on that nut at the moment. > I'd be happy to join in a discussion of how to make a better POD. Check out [EMAIL PROTECTED] Z.
