Re: [MacPerl] Using ' instead of :: as the package separator

[robinmcf@altern.org]

>pudge@pobox.com (Chris Nandor) wrote:
>But personally, I don't see a great need for documentation.  Inside
>Macintosh is the bulk of the documentation.  You need to understand the
>MacPerl interface to the toolbox -- which is documented, mostly, in MPPE
>and in Toolbox.pod -- and then figure out how the functions work from IM.

I have to say that in a recent thread related to this(findfolder puzzler),
what was basicaly stopping me from doing a comparatively simple operation,
was the PODs allow me to quote myself:

<<rather unsurprisingly by passing the file type to FileFind() I get the
path (which is what I'm doing obliquely with those LongFolderType()
chappies), and to be honest was what was causing me problems in the first
place - I have no problems using the four character foldertypes because I
know what they are and how to use them, rather than trying to figure out if
I'm dealing with a constant, string or function, which was the case with
NamesLikeThis()>>

I would like to further this by saying that as far as any other excursions
into toolbox land are similarly puzzling as there is nothing to explain
where the implementation of the interface in MacPerl differs from the info
given in Inside Mac so that in the likely event things don't work you can
figure out where they went wrong. Which personally speaking, is the single
biggest stumbling block to dealing with the Mac side of Perl - I have to
learn someone else's implementation of what I read in IM, in some cases
what's logical to them is anything but to me.


>I think I understand that point of view, but at the same time there's really
>not much to go on in terms of Perl examples of the functions in the Perl
>modules.  Maybe everything seems obvious after you've used it for a while, but
>it doesn't seem obvious before that.  It wouldn't take much - StandardFile.pm
>only has 5 functions, and a usage example for each would be nice.

I remember banging on about something to with the toolbox docs a while ago,
and was told that in the past there had been an attempt at pulling in some
kind of docs but nobody was very interested - what I don't get though is
why the archives aren't used to cull examples from to create FAQs and PODs
- there must be enough snippets which could be used to illustrate a
particular use (just on changing the file type alone there must be over 20).

C'mon look at us, we inherit Unix based docs which describe how to do
everything from IAC to using the system commands.......

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