[PYTHON DOC-SIG] Project proposal discussion document

[Fred L. Drake]

  I am advancing a proposal for a project which would benefit from the
input of the members of both doc-sig and progenv-sig.  I have prepared a
discussion document describing the project in general terms in more detail
than I present in this message, but a brief summary is appropriate.

  My intention is to produce tools which can analyze Python source code,
potentially as it is imported into a running Python process, and perform
sufficient analysis to create a representation of the object hierarchy
with as much documentation as can be derived from the source text and
documentation strings as possible. The data structure created by the
analysis should allow for programmatic examination as part of an
interactive development or debugging environment or for the generation of
static documentation of a collection of modules.

  My hope is that this project can be a collaborative project of,
primarily, the progenv SIG with the doc SIG providing critical advisory
input and evaluation. As described above, the work appears to be of
sufficient general interest to warrent the involvement of many
contributors. At the same time, the work promises enough modularity that
individuals need not invest huge amounts of time to provide a meaningful
contribution. The most significant investment to be made before
applications may be created within the project framework involves reaching
a consensus on the definable stages of the project and precise definitions
of the underlying data architecture.

  The discussion document is available via the world wide web at:

		http://weyr.cnri.reston.va.us/progenv/

  Feedback is invited via the SIG mailing lists.  I will be attending the
Python conference next week and hope to bring this proposal up at the
doc-sig and progenv-sig working groups.


  -Fred

--
Fred L. Drake, Jr.
fdrake@cnri.reston.va.us
Corporation for National Research Initiatives
1895 Preston White Drive
Reston, VA	   22091

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