Re: Which Pod module should be used / subclassed?

[Harald Jörg]

Hi Mark,

you write:

> Somewhere in 2003, I had the same need.  I suggested to get Pod to a
> higher level, but people refused larger changes.  So, I developed my own
> Pod extension, which generates both clean HTML via templates and clean POD.
> It is named 'OODoc' (because it was created before OpenOffice existed :-(

Oh, I am aware of OODoc.  I really like your standardized method of
documenting inheritance in your modules and *guess* this is another
benefit of your toolchain.

But actually, OODoc serves a different need.  Right now, I don't plan to
*rewrite* the Pod of 100 modules: I just want to get the most out of the
*existing* Pod.

> [...]
> However... the fancier things you want to achieve, the more time you have
> to spend on configuring it...  that's the advantage of the traditional
> Pod set-up.  One of the reasons that I think I still am the only user of
> OODoc ;-)

Yeah - that's what I call The Curse Of TIMTOWTDI: It is easier for one
single person to write a wonderful, rich replacement for Pod than for
the community to agree on enhancements to Pod.  "Pod" is just one of the
areas where this has happened in Perl.

> Maybe this helps you shaping your ideas.

It sure does - on a less urgent, but maybe more important scale.  The
topic is: How can we get the Perl community to accept change?  But that
is beyond the scope of this thread :)
-- 
Cheers,
haj

Re: Which Pod module should be used / subclassed?

[Harald Jörg]

Hi Karen,

you wrote:

> Have you looked at Pod::Weaver? It's usually used as part of
> Dist::Zilla, but it absolutely can be used on its own, and it's great
> for parsing pod documents into separate pieces. I'm also a big fan of
> Pod::Simple.

Thanks for the pointers!

You made me look at Pod::Weaver, as I'm using it in some setups, if only
as part of Dist::Zilla and without thinking too much.  It really solves
a lot of problems which I don't have :)

I'm not going to use it for the current project, though.  I've settled
for sort of re-inventing Pod::Simple::SimpleTree (without the scary
part), adding a bit of node-rearranging which Pod::Weaver also could
have done.  But Pod::Weaver comes with more dependencies than my code
has lines, and the Pod converter ships with the project, which does not
yet use Moose.  I love Moose, but I don't want to add it to a project
which isn't mine (I'm just contributing) only to get a better Pod
converter.

My enthusiasm for Pod::Simple has cooled a bit since I found out that
there are lots of TODOs in the documentation, and that these TODOs
linger there for 15 years or so.  I like the method-maker, though :-P
and I haven't found a better alternative.

When I wrote my mail I felt a bit uneasy because of the mess in the
Pod:: modules section while Pod is, in my opinion, an important part of
the Perl ecosystem.  But I've decided to get over it.  For now.

So, thanks again for your time!

> On Sun, May 5, 2019 at 3:59 PM Harald Jörg  wrote:
>>
>> Hello Pod-People,
>>
>> I hope that I don't start a religious war with this question.
>> I found this mailing list advertised in the Pod::Simple docs, so I would
>> accept a bias towards Pod::Simple based solutions :)
>>
>> So here's what I want to do: Extract Pod from a bunch of (ca 100) Perl
>> modules and Pod files and convert it to HTML.  Or XHTML.  Anything good
>> for today's browsers is fine.  Sounds pretty TIMTOWTDI, but every way
>> I've tried so far has minor issues, and I've some requirements for which
>> I haven't found an existing solution yet.
>>
>> The issues are rather harmless:
>>
>>  - Pod::POM is what's used today in the software to create the HTML
>>docs.  It fails to process Lhttps://www.perl.org>
>>links correctly.
>>
>>  - Pod::Simple::HTML produces invalid HTML (nested 'a' elements) when a
>>heading or item contains a Link like this:
>>
>>  =head1 Start at L<https://www.perl.org>
>>
>>  - Pod::Simple::XHTML apparently makes no effort to find content for the
>> element (nor does core pod2html, BTW).
>>
>> And there are a few things I miss.  They could be implemented in a
>> subclass of either of these, or even provided as an enhancement via Pull
>> Request:
>>
>>  - A custom link resolver: I want links to documents within the project
>>to be relative, but link to other CPAN modules to be
>>absolute. Preferably to metacpan.org instead of search.cpan.org.
>>
>>  - A custom table of contents
>>
>>  - Custom (or just different) backlinks to top of page
>>
>>  - Decent heuristics for page titles (Pod::Simple::PullParser does that
>>marvelously)
>>
>>  - ...and some more, but not enough to roll out my own converter.
>>
>> So, which if the modules is considered "state of the art" by the Pod
>> People?  Which one of them is least likely to be deprecated?
>>
>> Do others have similar requirements?
>> --
>> Cheers,
>> haj
>

-- 
Cheers,
haj

Which Pod module should be used / subclassed?

[Harald Jörg]

Hello Pod-People,

I hope that I don't start a religious war with this question.
I found this mailing list advertised in the Pod::Simple docs, so I would
accept a bias towards Pod::Simple based solutions :)

So here's what I want to do: Extract Pod from a bunch of (ca 100) Perl
modules and Pod files and convert it to HTML.  Or XHTML.  Anything good
for today's browsers is fine.  Sounds pretty TIMTOWTDI, but every way
I've tried so far has minor issues, and I've some requirements for which
I haven't found an existing solution yet.

The issues are rather harmless:

 - Pod::POM is what's used today in the software to create the HTML
   docs.  It fails to process Lhttps://www.perl.org>
   links correctly.

 - Pod::Simple::HTML produces invalid HTML (nested 'a' elements) when a
   heading or item contains a Link like this:

 =head1 Start at L

 - Pod::Simple::XHTML apparently makes no effort to find content for the
element (nor does core pod2html, BTW).

And there are a few things I miss.  They could be implemented in a
subclass of either of these, or even provided as an enhancement via Pull
Request: 

 - A custom link resolver: I want links to documents within the project
   to be relative, but link to other CPAN modules to be
   absolute. Preferably to metacpan.org instead of search.cpan.org.

 - A custom table of contents

 - Custom (or just different) backlinks to top of page

 - Decent heuristics for page titles (Pod::Simple::PullParser does that
   marvelously)

 - ...and some more, but not enough to roll out my own converter.

So, which if the modules is considered "state of the art" by the Pod
People?  Which one of them is least likely to be deprecated?

Do others have similar requirements?
-- 
Cheers,
haj