I think the main purpose and benefit of PerlMonks is in discussion, advice, code critiques, education and exploration -- not the distribution and maintenance of specific tools. Posting code here is different from posting code on CPAN or sourceforge.

And did you really intend to refer specifically to Snippets? That doesn't seem like the right place for version control anyway. Code Catacombs, maybe, but in that section I'd prefer to leave code revisions up to the node authors only.

More often that not, a post in Code Catacombs is a request for comment, to initiate a dialog about technique and the relative merits possible alternatives. Personally, I would not be interested in posting alternative versions of other people's code, thereby creating new branches in the source tree for a given module or app. But I pay close attention to the commentary by others, and sometimes I post a suggestion or two, or a (hopefully) helpful reaction for the OP. It's up to the original author when and whether to modify the OP code, and I think that's the right way.

Your idea does raise an important point that sets Code Catacombs apart from other sections -- and it might be worthwhile to extend the node template for this section so it provides a more regimented treatment of OP updates.

As it is, the standard thread in Code has a "heading" field in grey (Category, Author, Description), then the code. After that are the standard reply nodes by others. What would be nice is a separate "grey field", perhaps at the end of the OP (after the code), that provides a list of updates by the OP author.

The point would be that any time authors decide to update their code, a line is added to this extra grey section to keep a public record of the each update (particularly, when it happened), and give the authors a chance to provide a summary of the update's purpose, and even to list version numbers when they want to.

This would make it possible and easy for readers to see whether the author has made changes in reponse to comments by others, by making it easy for the OP author to cite things like "fixed sub foo in response to So-and-so's comments", etc. Also, if I download and use a Code post, then find a problem with it a couple months later, I could revisit the OP and I might see whether the author already fixed it. If not, I could send a bug report as a reply node, and from that point on, comparing the replies (and their dates) to the update record in the OP would make it clear whether the bug ever got fixed by the author.

I suspect this would mean a change in the underlying database table, as well as a slight adjustment to the node template for the Code section, but I think the benefit would make it worthwhile.

In reply to Re: Version control over contributed codes by graff
in thread Version control over contributed codes by xern

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