[Doc-SIG] Re: docstring signatures (and my memory)

[Tony J Ibbs (Tibs)]

I wrote:
> Oh dear. Well, thanks to Edward for finally getting the BDFL's opinion
> on the "top of the callable docstring" thing - wish I could find the
> reference where it was claimed to be needed.

Unfortunately, it's not trivial to search the doc-sig archives, but a
download and a grep later, I find:

> Date: Sun, 28 Nov 1999 16:57:03 -0800 (Pacific Standard Time)
> From: David Ascher <da@ski.org>
> To: doc-sig@python.org
> Subject: [Doc-SIG] docstring grammar
>
>  For compatibility with Guido, IDLE and Pythonwin (and increasing the
>  likelihood that the proposal will be accepted by GvR), the
>  docstrings of callables must follow the following convention
>  established in Python's builtins:
>
>       >>> print len.__doc__
>       len(object) -> integer
...rest of explanation omitted...

Which was written last time round the Doc-SIG loop.
So it wasn't me that was channeling Guido wrongly, after all.

(it's very strange going back in Doc-SIG history so deeply - tempting to
browse for too long...)

Tibs
--
Tony J Ibbs (Tibs)      http://www.tibsnjoan.co.uk/
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