Easy-to-use Perl Documentation on the Web

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Re: Easy-to-use Perl Documentation on the Web by Arunbear (Prior) on Jan 17, 2005 at 10:32 UTC
Nice, but there doesn't seem to be a way to go straight to the pod of a given module. e.g. contrast http://www.perlglobe.com/CGI with http://tnx.nl/CGI	[reply]
Re: Easy-to-use Perl Documentation on the Web by duff (Parson) on Jan 17, 2005 at 18:07 UTC
This thing doesn't look like it had any input from the perl community at all. There's all sorts of weirdness too. For instance, just looking at http://www.perlglobe.com/all_funcs.html what do they mean by "functions for real @ARRAYs" and "functions for real %HASHes"? And does it bother anyone else that there's a section at the bottom for "functions new in perl5"? More observations: there's an entry for a pod named perltootc (it's been named perltooc for a while now) and perldelta is described as "what's new for perl 5.6.x". Anyway, I don't see any improvement or benefit here. It looks like someone just grabbed a perl dist and slapped an HTML front end on it. This is hardly comparable to php.net except as an embarassment. I guess PerlGlobe was hoping to generate revenue by click-throughs and posting here was a good way to get people to visit the site. duff	[reply]
Re: Easy-to-use Perl Documentation on the Web by jZed (Prior) on Jan 17, 2005 at 18:16 UTC
There really should be more visual differentiation between ads and content, different background, different colors, or something. I would avoid the site for that reason alone if it doesn't change. Do you have permission to use the O'Reilly camel? It's registered AFAIK. Are you intending to state where the information comes from? I see no credit to the original authors. I see no mention that anyone who has perl has access to these same materials on their own local computer. The site looks nice but so far it does not appear to me to respect the spirit of open source which is at the heart of perl.	[reply]
Re: Easy-to-use Perl Documentation on the Web by TedYoung (Deacon) on Jan 17, 2005 at 13:21 UTC
Personally, I prefer perldoc.com. It also includes the core modules PODs. And the interlinear advertisements on perlglobe are a little distracting. But, perlglobe shows promise. It always takes time for a site to mature! Ted Young `($$<<$$=>$$<=>$$<=$$>>$$) always returns 1. :-)`	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Easy-to-use Perl Documentation on the Web by dimar (Curate) on Jan 17, 2005 at 22:37 UTC
If for some reason a need presented itself to create a spider to extract bits of perl documentation from somewhere, perlglobe.com might be a candidate for such use. As it stands now, the stylistic elements and layout of the site render it somewhat unpalatable for human consumption.	[reply]
Re: Easy-to-use Perl Documentation on the Web by fireartist (Chaplain) on Jan 18, 2005 at 10:20 UTC
(Hopefully constructive feedback) I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and hope you are intending to provide a worthwhile site, in the spirit of opensource / perl communities, and that it's not just an advertising stunt. page all_funcs.html: function names are too small to read easily and harder because of the green colour. I think dropping the 'real' in "Functions for arrays / hashes" would address the above comment. I can't comment on the accuracy of the "Functions new in perl5" list, having never used perl4, but I think it's a worthwhile feature. page all_pods.html: it's really hard to scan the list to actually find anything. Maybe having the descriptions aligned in a column would help. The revision numbers / dates seem a bit pointless. Again, the green doesn't help. When typing into the comments box, the text is tiny! Why? Definitely distinguish the ads from the main content. For the "What's a POD?" link, there's no excuse using a javascript HREF link. See http://www.alistapart.com/articles/popuplinks/ for a tutorial on how to create a JS popup link which will still work for people without javascript or for search engines. Having a few highlighted pod's on the frontpage is good, but including the Threads Tutorial in that list is questionable, considering it's an experimental feature. Definitely agree with Arunbear's comment on module docs. It's good to not only be able to browse the module docs, but also to be able to see the list of standard modules, so you know what you can count on being installed. Your copyright notice © 2004 PolariStar LLC. All Rights Reserved. Portions copyright by other authors where indicated. is downright wrong. Most of the pod pages don't have an explicit copyright section, so you appear to be claiming copyright be default. I'm pretty sure regardless of whether you use the artistic of GPL license, you either need to link the the sources on www.cpan.org or provide the sources on your site. You said it's from the most recent stable version. Looking at perldelta, this appears to be the docs for version 5.6.1 (latest is 5.8.6). I think perldoc.com's ability to search the docs from a list of specific versions is very useful (though listing all stable versions would be better). UPDATE: Corion msg'd me that the artistic license only requires attribution, not linking / distribution of the original sources - thanks.	[reply]
Re: Easy-to-use Perl Documentation on the Web by fireartist (Chaplain) on Jan 19, 2005 at 15:30 UTC
I've just come across http://perldoc.perldrunks.org which has a fantastic interface. I think it'll become my new doc source, as I often get frustrated with perldoc.com being down.	[reply]