* Russ Allbery wrote, in an earlier email: > I'm not sure why you'd express it that way rather than just expressing it > like this: > > =extend N Y W B,I > > In other words, the first argument is the new code, and the subsequent > arguments are the replacements to use in order of decreasing preference.
This I agree with. It seems more logical. * Russ Allbery ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) [13 Oct 2002 13:39]: > Sean M Burke <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: [...] > > That's how I handle the fact that the universe of possible useful > > extension-features is larger than A-Z (minus the letters already > > used) that are available for Pod formatting codes. > I understand the problem, but I can't say I really like that solution. > It means that if you look at a piece of POD and it says Y<...>, you > have no way of knowing what that means without looking for =extend > commands. Feels like action at a distance to me. And worse, it may > mean something entirely different than what Y<...> means somewhere > else. On the other hand, it allows the authors to do what they like. The main problem is that of redundancy. e.g. all my Pod will end up with something like: =extend M module-name C,I =extend N method-name C > My understanding of the point of =extend was to allow us to add new > interior sequences without breaking all the existing parsers, not to > let people create their own mini-languages using POD syntax. Hardly a mini-language. It's more a gracefully degrading syntax. I trust Sean will have Pod::Simple complain if the =extend sequence doesn't devolve into some universal Pod interior sequence (or the 0/1). > The latter is kind of interesting, but I'm not sure it fits with the > point of POD at all. The point of POD being "to be simple"? I think it does. It will let me write what I mean. I refer to modules and methods a reasonable bit, thus module-name and method-name are appropriate names for me to have. I can write myself tools to reference these as need be. All I need to do is write myself a Post-It listing the available single letter sequences. It's not as if Pod is becoming pseudo-XML or anything. That's just the representation used internally by Pod::Simple (and it has made my writing of Pod::Simple::LaTeX very simple). cheers, -- Iain.
