Python docs disappointing

[Steven D'Aprano]

Albert van der Horst wrote:

> That doesn't help. I'm a very experienced programmer and work in
> routinely a dozen languages. Sometimes I do python. I want to do
> numeric work. I remember the name numpy. It is important, everybody
> knows it, it is all over the place. So I want to find its docs,
> or some lead, whatever. I go to the official Python site,
> http://docs.python.org and type in numpy in the search machine.
> 
> It is embarassing, try it!

Why would it be embarrassing?

Why should the Python website provide documentation for numpy? Numpy is not
part of the Python language, and it is not part of the Python standard
library.

If you buy a Compaq printer to plug in to your Hewlett-Packard computer
running Windows, would you go to the Microsoft website to find out where to
order toner for the printer? Or to the H-P site?

Numpy might be written *in* Python (*some* of numpy, not all of it) but it
is not part of Python. Why should the python language website be
responsible for numpy documentation? How about django, CherryPy, nltk, and
about two thousand other third party projects?

It is 2014, not 1977, and your first step for nearly any search should be
the global search engine of your choice: Google, DuckDuckGo, Bing, Yahoo,
Startpage, or similar. Only if you know that something is categorically
part of Python or its standard library should you limit yourself to the
Python language reference and standard library documentation.


> Plain google is far superior in finding information.

Well duh.

> And you tell me that writing yet another tutorial would improve that?

Apparently people need a tutorial to teach them to search the entire web not
just a single website...




-- 
Steven