Re: Deprecation of alternate text in hyperlinks

Karl Williamson <[email protected]> writes:

> Version 1.50 of Pod::Parser adds a check and message indicating that
> L<text|hyperlink> is deprecated.  This is based on the following
> sentences in perlpodspec, which has been there since its inception in
> 2001:

> "Authors wanting to link to a particular (absolute) URL, must do so
> only with "LE<lt>scheme:...>" codes (like
> LE<lt>http://www.perl.org>), and must not attempt "LE<lt>Some Site
> Name|scheme:...>" codes.  This restriction avoids many problems
> in parsing and rendering LE<lt>...> codes."

> Elsewhere in the document, it says that the handler should handle these,
> as in the example

>  L<Perl.org|http://www.perl.org/>

> The new Pod:Parser has just been installed in blead, and about 10 pods
> run afoul of this new check, including things like

> L<[email protected]|mailto:[email protected]>

> My question is should there really be a message for this kind of use,
> and if so, should it extend to mailto: links?

I disagree with this change, and disagreed with the statement in
perlpodspec in 2001 as well.  There's really no good reason to disallow
anchor text for hyperlinks in L<> codes.  The parsing issues are not that
serious.

I think this syntax should be undeprecated and declared officially
blessed.

-- 
Russ Allbery ([email protected])             <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>