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In article <Pine.LNX.4.44.0209071321020.5502-100000 / candle.superlink.net>,
 <dblack / candle.superlink.net> wrote:
>Hi --
>
>On Sun, 8 Sep 2002, Dave Thomas wrote:
>
>> Doesn't seem to be much difference in readability to me. Why would I
>> convert RDoc as an input format to POD as an output format. Wouldn't I
>> be better off adding the extra output processors that folks wanted?
>
>That last may be intended as a rhetorical question, but I'll go ahead
>and answer it anyway:
>
>Yes.
>
>:-)
>
>I'm honestly not sure why the subject of POD has arisen at all in
>connection with Ruby.  We have such a nice, integrated, pluggable,
>expandable tool in RDoc.  Another quote from perlpod(1): "The intent
>is simplicity, not power."  With RDoc, we have both :-)
>
>(I know there are some things to be considered in the rd/RDoc
>relationship -- I'm not trying to write rd off by enthusing about RDoc
>-- but I don't see the relevance of POD to the process.)
>

- - The only advantage POD has over anything existing currently in
Ruby is that I always know where to find it. If I always know
where to look and what I'll find there, I can write automated
tools to search it[1]. POD was the Perl community's answer to 
the question that originally started this thread. All the
objections to Ruby as a "real" language have been answered
by both the Perl and Python worlds. It wasn't that long ago
that having a career as a Perl programmer seemed as remote
as being a Ruby programmer does now. I'm not suggesting that
we use POD as anything other than a model for ideas. 

- - While Ruby has a document writing tool in rdoc that 
surpasses anything in the Perl world, it doesn't have a
document FINDING tool that is anywhere near as good as
perldoc. In the long run I really don't care what format
the documentation is in as long as I can find it quickly.

- - Booker C. Bense 



[1]- "find /usr/local/lib/ruby -type f -exec grep ...." lacks 
some elegance. 

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