urllib2 for HTTPS/SSL

[Will Stuyvesant]

> [Kylotan]
> ........................Is there any chance of the official
> documentation on this useful-looking module being improved?

It is one of the biggest problems with Python that not enough people
like to write good documentation about how to use the Python Standard
Library.  I think the best documentation for you is the book "Python
Standard Library" (PSL) by Fredrik Lundh with its nice examples (could
use even more!); but some bonehead at O'Reilly made the decision to
publish "Python in a Nutshell" and "Python Cookbook" instead of the
2nd edition of PSL.  But these have bad example code and the English
feels bad, not as bad as my written English perhaps but not a pleasure
to read either.

Many Python modules have a class based design and class based
frameworks need a detailed description and especially examples how to
use those classes.  That will also force the designers to give a
*motivation* for the class-based design.  Answer questions like "Why
do I want users of this module to subclass my Application class? 
Would it not be easier for them to supply just a list of functions
with a clear description of input and output?".  To my opinion there
are just too much class based designs, like for example that Twisted
thing: too much use of OO and inheritance makes it hard to understand
and often leaves the user with the question "But why...".  It would
take a *LOT* of documentation to make up for the design decisions
there.

I am not against OO, it has its virtues; I am against overusing OO. 
And especially against class-based designs with poor documentation
lacking motivation.


-- 
Python is an excellent language for learning object orientation. (It
also happens to be my favorite OO scripting language.)
    -- Sriram Srinivasan, _Advanced Perl Programming_