[Python-Dev] introducing the experimental pyref wiki

[Fredrik Lundh]

Tim Peters wrote:

> > (Or are the two goals -- completeness and readability --
> > incompossible, unable to be met at the same time by one document?)
>
> No, but it's not easy, and it's not necessarily succinct.  For an
> existence proof, see Guy Steele's "Common Lisp the Language".   I
> don't think it's a coincidence that Steele worked on the readable "The
> Java Language Specification" either, or on the original Scheme spec.
> Google should hire him to work on Python docs now ;-)

on the other hand, it's important to realize that the Python audience
have changed a lot since Guido wrote the first (carefully crafted, and
mostly excellent) version of the language reference.

I'm sure Guy could create a document that even a martian could read
[1], and I'm pretty sure that we could untangle the huge pile of peep-
hole tweaks that the reference has accumulated and get back to some-
thing close to Guido's original, but I'm not sure that is what the Python
community needs.

(my goal is to turn pyref into more of a random-access encyclopedia,
and less of an ISO-style "it's all there; just keep reading it over and
over again until you get it" specification.  it should be possible to link
from the tutorial to a reference page without causing brain implosions)

</F>

1) see http://pyref.infogami.com/introduction