Use the Source Luke

[Ben Finney]

Raymond Hettinger <python at rcn.com> writes:

> I hoping a new trend will start with dev's putting direct
> source code links in their documentation:
>
>  http://rhettinger.wordpress.com/2011/01/28/open-your-source-more/

That's a good article overall.

I have a quibble with the framing:

> The rest of the blame lies with installers. They all treat
> human-readable scripts like they were binaries and tuck the code away
> in a dark corner.

That’s hardly a “blame” of installers. The modules are placed in such
locations because they need to be accessible in a hierarchy at a
location that is known to not conflict with anything else, and be
predictable for the Python interpreter on the system.

If you want to blame anything for this (though I think it’s inaccurate
to frame it as a problem), the correct target of your accusation is the
fact that a filesystem path is the identifier for these modules that
will be used by programs to find them.


As for reading the source and making it more available to programmers,
yes, I agree wholeheartedly. Encouraging the routine reading of other
projects’s source code is a good thing, and thank you for beating the
drum.

-- 
 \       “I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them |
  `\    to do to their fellows, because it always coincides with their |
_o__)                      own desires.” —Susan Brownell Anthony, 1896 |
Ben Finney