[Doc-SIG] A draft for a "defining new types" chapter for ext.tex
Michael Hudson
mwh21@cam.ac.uk
Mon, 19 Feb 2001 14:21:56 +0000 (GMT)
On Mon, 19 Feb 2001, Fred L. Drake, Jr. wrote:
>
> Michael Hudson writes:
> > After various people noticing that there is no documentation at all for
> > defining new types for python in the standard docs I set to work:
> >
> > http://www-jcsu.jesus.cam.ac.uk/~mwh21/hacks/ext/defining-new-types.html
>
> I'll take a look at this; hopefully later today. Do I have
> permission to integrate this into the existing documentation?
By all means; I was going to submit it as a patch when I'd got some more
done. But if you like what's there, go for it.
I would probably be easier if I sent you the Tex, too...
> > It's not even nearly finished; I would like to add sections on supporting
> > GC, coercion, rich comparisons &c (partly because documenting such things
> > would force me to learn about them!). But I would like to see what people
> > think.
>
> I have some text from Neil Schemenauer on adding GC support to
> objects; I'll try and integrate that before the upcoming beta.
That'd be cool.
> > (a) to define a new type really you need to understand how Python is
> > implemented. So perhaps I should write a Python-Internals-HOWTO
> > first.
>
> That might even reasonably be part of the Extending & Embedding
> manual, given the necessity of understanding the material. If you
> write it, it's pretty much your call where it goes.
OK. I'll see what I come up with, and when.
> > (b) The Extending and Embedding Manual could really do with being entirely
> > rewritten.
>
> Yep!
I even thought about replying to one of those "write a book about Python
for us" posts on clpy with the suggestion of a Python internals book, but
then I thought I'd better worry about passing this year...
> > (c) It's hard to think of a sensible order to write such a thing in
> > without lots of circular dependencies (of the form you need to read
> > chapter I to understand chapter II, but to understand chapter I you
> > need to have read chapter III which requires understanding chapter
> > II...).
>
> Sure! It'll open when my kids are on there own, so it will be a
> while before it's available. ;-)
Don't have that time-sink yet...
Cheers,
M.