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• Methods and Pod not actual problem (Score:1)

  by duncand (9318)

  There isn't actually a problem in the interaction of methods and pod, when you consider that the "problem" is based on false assumptions.

  One false assumption is that methods have to be indented when you have a block class in order to be pretty; I disagree, and methods can be flush left just like their pod, so all pretty so far.

  Another false assumption is that you can't have block classes in Perl 5, and so what worked for Perl 5 can't work for Perl 6; in fact you *can* have block classes in Perl 5, and I hav
  • Re:Methods and Pod not actual problem (Score:2)

    by Ovid (2709) on 2009.07.24 2:03 (#69594) Homepage Journal

    One false assumption is that methods have to be indented when you have a block class in order to be pretty; I disagree, and methods can be flush left just like their pod, so all pretty so far.

    This is an interesting issue in Perl because now TIMTOWTDI makes a real mess of things. Frankly, I don't want my methods to be flush left because if I scan down the code, I like my indentation to instantly give me a hint of scope. If the method is indented, that gives me information that left justification won't. So let's say I have two classes in one package. The structure can look like this:

    class
        method
        method
        method
    end
    class
        method
        method
        method
    end

    I can see at a glance we have a second class there. That's very important, but easy to miss with this (particularly when you consider things won't be laid out this cleanly):

    class
    method
    method
    method
    end
    class
    method
    method
    method
    end

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    Parent

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by masak (6289)

      Thank you, Ovid. You put words to what was only an indistinct feeling for me. I agree fully, I also don't want to sacrifice indentation within classes.

      But I also want my Pod. Maybe I'll end up putting the Pod at the end of each file, and then writing some tests to make sure the Pod doesn't drift away from the methods themselves.
    • Re: (Score:1)

      by duncand (9318)

      I agree that indenting methods relative to classes does look better, and I even do that myself some times.

      Mainly I find that the indenting works best when individual classes are fairly small in the amount of code department, and similarly in those cases I generally don't use the dividing lines I mention.

      Where I don't find indenting necessary is when classes are large or there are a number of large methods (ones that fill a screen or more), so that say you've got hundreds to thousands or more of code lines i