I don't think the need is for Yet Another Documentation Protocol, but simply for better and more consistent use of the current protocol. I heartily agree that an example that does exactly what I want so I can cut and paste it is ideal, but how does the module author know what nefarious purpose I may may find for his wonderful module?

It's not the format of the documentation that is the problem, it is the documentation itself. Not everyone can write good documentation just like not everyone can write good code. And just because someone can write good code doesn't mean that they can document it well. All the rules and format changes you like are not going to get someone who is incapable of writing good documentation to write good documentation, or even provide comprehensive and comprehendable examples.

There are some excellent examples of good documentation on CPAN (MIME::Lite for example) and many examples of poor documentation and quite a few examples where the problem domain is so big that no documentation is ever going to address everyone's needs (XML::Twig comes to mind).

At the end of the day this just isn't a fixable problem, unless of course you are volunteering for the job? :)

DWIM is Perl's answer to Gödel

In reply to Re: Our documentation sucks by GrandFather
in thread Our documentation sucks by jimt

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