[Python-ideas] Add citation() to site.py

[Guido van Rossum]

Well, I entirely fail to understand why that belongs in the code
rather than in the docs. "Because R does it" seems a pretty poor
reason. But then again I've never cared about citations.

On Thu, Mar 17, 2016 at 4:33 PM, Steven D'Aprano <steve at pearwood.info> wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 17, 2016 at 02:51:37PM -0700, Guido van Rossum wrote:
>> I replied from my cell phone but it bounced (again :-( ). I wrote:
>>
>> """
>> I think this should be in the docs, not in the code. (The reason to
>> have copyright() in the code is purely legalistic.)
>> """
>
> If this is in the code, a possible future enhancement would be for it to
> take an optional module or module name and query that module for its
> preferred citation. That's what R does.
>
>
>> But I would be much more interested in hearing what the citation text
>> should be before discussing how to add it to the code. (I still think
>> adding it to the code isn't very helpful -- we can't add this to the
>> older versions of code that people are likely to be using.)
>
> True, but some day -- hopefully not that far away -- 3.6 will be the
> "older version" that people are likely to be using.
>
>
> My suggested citation format is based heavily on that used by R. It
> could be implemented something like this:
>
> year = platform.python_build()[1].split()[2]
> vers = platform.python_version()
> _CITE = """\
> To cite Python in publications, please use:
>
>   Python Core Team ({}). Python {}: A dynamic, open
>   source programming language. Python Software Foundation.
>   URL https://www.python.org/.
>
> """.format(year, vers)
>
>
> which would end up looking like this:
>
> To cite Python in publications, please use:
>
>   Python Core Team (2015). Python 3.6.0a0: A dynamic, open
>   source programming language. Python Software Foundation.
>   URL https://www.python.org/.
>
>
> I'm not married to any particular wording or preferred format.
>
>
>
> --
> Steve
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-- 
--Guido van Rossum (python.org/~guido)