Python Documentation?

Cameron Laird claird at lairds.com
Mon Sep 1 09:24:58 EDT 2003


In article <Xns93E99702FBABCgodlarz at 62.243.74.162>,
Larz  <lp at your-pants-coder.dk> wrote:
>claird at lairds.com (Cameron Laird) wrote in news:vl6dmm8jutl140
>@corp.supernews.com:
>
>> Python already has a structure--and much content!--for 
>> comparable collaboration in <URL: http://
>> www.python.org/cgi-bin/moinmoin/ >.  Moreover, as several
>> follow-ups have explained, Python developers have differ-
>> ent work practices than PHPers, and a different relation
>> to documentation.  In particular, it's hard to overempha-
>> size how much working Python programmers depend on 
>> interactive introspection:  use of the interpreter's
>> built-in help, pydoc, and related facilities to discover
>> and confirm details that, in PHPonia, are regarded as 
>> matters for online documentation.
>
>Yes, I agree that a lot of python programmers think differently. 
>Even though, I sense a general consensus, especially among beginning 
>Pythoneers, that the community lacks a great tool, like the one PHP has.
>Of course I am not just thinking about the documentation itself, which you 
>could get with pydoc/help(), but also experience, pointers, pitfalls that 
>other people ran in to. That's what makes it a community ;)
>
>Anyway, I am pretty sure we're going to fill a much needed niche, and if 
>not, we're certainly going to meet our own needs ;)
			.
			.
			.
Larz, my own career has been almost entirely an
exploration of the relation between meeting my
own needs and filling much-needed niches; any
words of support would be only superfluous.

I fear, though, that I didn't write clearly.  I
made *two* observations; not only do Pythoneers
rely on introspection, but we *already* have a
vehicle for sharing code examples, commentary,
and related matters:  the Wiki (complementing,
incidentally, the Cookbook).
-- 

Cameron Laird <Cameron at Lairds.com>
Business:  http://www.Phaseit.net
Personal:  http://phaseit.net/claird/home.html




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