[Python-Dev] The docs, reloaded

[Ron Adam]

Laurent Gautier wrote:
> 2007/5/23, Nick Craig-Wood <nick at craig-wood.com>:
>> Georg Brandl <g.brandl at gmx.net> wrote:
>>>  Nick Craig-Wood schrieb:
>>>> Being a seasoned unix user, I tend to reach for pydoc as my first stab
>>>> at finding some documentation rather than (after excavating the mouse
>>>> from under a pile of paper) use a web browser.
>>>>
>>>> If you've ever used pydoc you'll know it reads docstrings and for some
>>>> modules they are great and for others they are sorely lacking.
>>>>
>>>> If pydoc could show all this documentation as well I'd be very happy!
>>>>
>>>> Maybe your quick dispatch feature could be added to pydoc too?
>>>  It is my intention to work together with Ron Adam to make the pydoc <->
>>>  documentation integration as seamless as possible.
>> So I'll be able to read the main docs for a module in a terminal
>> without reaching for the web browser (or info)?  That would be great!
> 
> One option is to use a text-mode browser (lynx, links, or the likes).
> 
> The other is to develop a terminal mode application (currently in pydoc,
> I believe)
 >
>> How would pydoc decide which bit of docs it is going to show?
>>
>> If I type "pydoc re" is it going to give me the rather sparse __doc__
>> from the re module or the nice reST docs?  Or maybe both, one after
>> the other?  Or will I have to use a flag to dis-ambiguate?
> 
> I really think that making pydoc a solid library to extract/search/navigate
> the documentation offers a lot of interesting perspectives.
> When one think beyond the application discussed here, there are a
> lot of tools (ipython, or any IDE for example) that could make great use
> of the facility.
> 
> [note: Ron and I seemed to disagree on what (and how) pydoc should be,
> and that in particular, but I keep a keen interest in having such a library.]

But we agree on making it a useful library module or package.  ;-)

And I don't see anything above I disagree with.

Cheers,
    Ron


>> If you type "pydoc re" at the moment then it says in it
>>
>>   MODULE DOCS
>>       http://www.python.org/doc/current/lib/module-re.html
>>
>> which is pretty much useless to me when ssh-ed in to a linux box half
>> way around the world...
>>
>>>> It is missing conversion of ``comment'' at the moment as I'm sure you
>>>> know...
>>>  Sorry, what did you mean?
>> ``comment'' produces smart quotes in latex if I remember correctly.
>> You probably want to convert it somehow because it looks a bit odd on
>> the web page as it stands.  I'm not sure what the reST replacement
>> might be, but converting it just to "comment" would probably be OK.
>> Likewise with `comment' to 'comment'.
>>
>> For an example see the first paragraph here:
>>
>>   http://pydoc.gbrandl.de/reference/index.html
>>
>> --
>> Nick Craig-Wood <nick at craig-wood.com> -- http://www.craig-wood.com/nick
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