Re: POD as a general documentation system

I use pod as a general documentation language :)
I document (lately) my java in pod (javadoc--) :)
I take notes in pod (always!) ;)
I write essays in pod (not that I care to share).

How the mind works (association) is a part of it, but I'll bet another part is exposure. Most people just haven't a clue what pod is, or it doesn't seem appealing enough. Here's what they may be thinking:

How do you embed images in POD? they'd ask
- What? No Images?? they'd say, to which i'd respond:
  Most documentation needs no images (even though there is plenty of users who might prefer it), so most writing documentation don't mind (i sure as feck don't), and neither should you (plain is plenty). But if you're desperate, you can always embed html (as in =begin html html =end html).
- What? =begin html?? they'd say, to which i'd respond:
  It may seem weird to embed other formats into pod, but that's the beauty of pod. You may argue why not use html to begin with, but you know why. And if you don't like doing it because you have more than one target format like html, well you got Pod::Parser (among many others) baby, so invent your own ( =for imageEmbedderInAllMyTargetFormats filename anybody? powerful indeed).

MJD says you can't just make shit up and expect the computer to know what you mean, retardo!
I run a Win32 PPM repository for perl 5.6x+5.8x. I take requests.
** The Third rule of perl club is a statement of fact: pod is sexy.

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Re: Re: POD as a general documentation system by robartes (Priest) on Mar 26, 2003 at 13:37 UTC
Most documentation needs no images Indeed. I used to think that images were necessary in documentation (after all, an image speaks for 1000 words), but I dropped this off my list of requirements when I noticed that the vast majority of my stuff does without them. So, it's not on my requirements list, and if I really need to include an image in POD, there's always `=for formatter` as you say. Thanks for your comment! CU Robartes-	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Re: Re: POD as a general documentation system by michaeld (Monk) on Mar 26, 2003 at 13:49 UTC
Robartes, As a sysman you probably do not need to include a lot of images in your documentation, but that doesn't necessarily mean POD is versatile enough to be an all-round documentation system, IMHO. Technical analysis of programs for one, benefits a lot from pictures and diagrams. (At least in my experience) Nevertheless, I can fully agree with you: POD offers a lot of possibilities. Cheers, MichaelD.	[reply]
Re: Re: POD as a general documentation system by Heidegger (Hermit) on Mar 26, 2003 at 13:49 UTC
On the text versus image topic philosophers of language would claim that the ultimate goal of philosophy is the analysis of a thought; thought studies have to be separate from psychological thinking processes and the only proper method of thought analysis is through language. If we'd take a radical stand, images hardly belong to the language; so here we go - the ultimate text world ...	[reply]
Re: Re: POD as a general documentation system by perrin (Chancellor) on Mar 26, 2003 at 16:25 UTC
The lack if images and basic tables really is a problem. I have written articles for perl.com in POD. I often need to represent something with a graph or a table of data, and this is basically impossible in "pure" POD. I think I may switch to a very limited subset of HTML at some point.	[reply]