[Python-Dev] Pydoc Improvements / Rewrite

[Laurent Gautier]

Ron,

I agree that pydoc could benefit a bit from some cleanup.
As you point it out, the ability to write quick viewers would be
very helpful. I came across that when wanting to develop script
on a remote web server for which I only had FTP access: I ended
up having to study pydoc more than I wanted in order to be able
to build a display-the-doc cgi.

However having two different modules might not be needed.
Introspection is probably already available in the separate module 'inspect',
and what a code pydoc would have to do is model the documentation
(as a tree) and offer convenience function to navigate the data. Beside that,
there would be sub-modules for the different viewers for the documentation
data - the interactive console being just one of the viewers.

Finally, I would suspect that an API-breaking modification of the module would
need time to be accepted. May be the original author of pydoc is considering
changes as well, and joining effort would be possible ?


L.


PS: I would also not go for a module name deliberately prefixed with "_"
(as some people might associate that with protected or private objects).