Re: RFC 357 (v2) Perl should use XML for documentation instead of POD

[Jarkko Hietaniemi]

> Any others?  There are bugs in the RFC process.  Now is the time to
> fix them.

I don't know whether this is worth a separate improvement # but here goes:

Too many RFCs live in a vacuum by not not explaining in enough detail
what is the problem they are trying to solve, but instead go ahead and
pull new/backward-incompatible syntax and/or keywords and/or semantics
out of thin air.  I know that one of the goals of the RFC process was
to encourage bold and daring new ideas, but I must confess to
oftentimes being one or more of scared/baffled/amused/sad when seeing
how blithely people took to the task of bodly going where few have
gone before, maybe for a reason.  Call me an old curmudgeon but some
words towards backward compatibility, keeping proposed changes as
small and generic as possible (I think that's one of things that
epitomises perl: lots of cleverly interlocking small features or
feature sets) would have been nice before the launch of the RFC process.

-- 
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        # There is this special biologist word we use for 'stable'.
        # It is 'dead'. -- Jack Cohen