I would love to keep these consistent and "best practice."

Consistency is the best practice.

I don't think you will find one particular way of doing anything in POD, but as long as you keep your project constitent with itself you should be okay. And consistency also has the side benefit of being easily "search-and-replace"-able :)

I prefer not to surround optional argument with brackets (or any other stuff that is typical of unix man pages) because those have real meanings in Perl. Likewise, I don't really like the pseudocode argument style of "perldoc -f" (i.e. all caps), though that's at least a sort of reference standard.

I prefer to use actual perl structures, named in a way that indicates what they should contain, and then explain them in the actual Pod description. E.g.

=head2 validate

  $is_valid = validate( \@args );

C<validate()> takes a reference to an array of arguments...
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But I'll echo what the others said -- consistency is the most important thing. You'll never get everyone to agree on a form to use, but as long as you're internally consistent, you'll minimize confusion.

I agree with the "I prefer to use actual perl structures, named in a way that indicates what they should contain, ...". I would add the criteria/goal that the sample code should try to have a productivity advantage, i.e. allow cut-and-paste by the POD reader.
Try to use the standard/common variable names found in the shop or application in the sample code. Examples: return code ($retcode, $rc), error return ($error_msg), etc. to make the sample code easier to quickly use.

Also in agreement, \@array is far more meaningful than $arrayref or confusing []. If you are concerned about confusion (and particularly if more than one person is writing POD) - the first POD you write should be a style guide. Sounds redundant to some, but - Document how you Document, beforehand.


I can't believe it's not psellchecked

the first step to a good POD is a good template (e.g. Module::Starter::PBP).

the second step is a good, intuitive API. if your API is good, a useful (meaning not too long and covering enough to start using your module) SYNOPIS section should be possible. I always look at that example code and then search for the functions I need.

Explain that functions in detail: the parameters, return values and exceptions. Your question was probably how to do that right? It is not important as long as you write it down in a clear and consitent way. Maybe look at mature modules like DBI, CGI. Provide example(s). If the examples section for a function needs to be long to cover all functionality, you should probably refactor your code.

castaway once recommended podgen to me. Thanks to castaway, podgen is now compatible with Damian Conway's Perl Best Practices book.

HTH,