[doc] Clarify the situation around smartmatch in perlexperiment

[book]

Where

pod/perlexperiment.pod

Description

The current document says about smartmatch:

Will be removed in 5.42.0

Since that was written, the smartmatch feature was created, and smartmatch was not removed, but disabled in the :5.42 feature bundle.

[jkeenan]

Where

pod/perlexperiment.pod

Description

The current document says about smartmatch:

Will be removed in 5.42.0

Since that was written, the smartmatch feature was created, and smartmatch was not removed, but disabled in the :5.42 feature bundle.

Can you point to the specific commits in which the disabling was implemented?

(I ask because there were so many smartmatch-related issues that I lost track of where things stand.)

Thanks.

[book]

#22752 requested that smartmatch was put behind a feature guard, instead of being completely removed. And it was implemented in #22766.

[jkeenan]

#22752 requested that smartmatch was put behind a feature guard, instead of being completely removed. And it was implemented in #22766.

When I go to #22766, I see that it was closed with 0 commits and 0 files changed. I don't understand that -- so I'll take a pass on writing a p.r. to satisfy this ticket. :(

[book]

I seems there was some kerfluffle around merging the PR. 15cbd20 is the commit that merged the smartmatch feature.

[tonycoz]

I looked at this and wondered how to describe it's status.

I don't think it's a current experiment, we're not planning on iterating on it's design for the same reason it wasn't removed.

I don't think it's "so wildly successful and played so well with others" that it belongs in Accepted features.

And it's no longer removed.

Add a new section "Developmental Backwaters" or "Features we tried to remove"?

[book]

Or "Failed Experiments that Stuck"?

[jkeenan]

Or "Failed Experiments that Stuck"?

Or perhaps "Discouraged", since placing it behind a feature guard is implicitly saying that something is not suitable for widespread use?

[tonycoz]

Or "Failed Experiments that Stuck"?

Missed the last "t" the first time I read that