[Python-Dev] Missing command line documentation for new tools

[Nick Coghlan]

On Tue, May 29, 2012 at 9:20 AM, Nick Coghlan <ncoghlan at gmail.com> wrote:
> As the standard library comes to include more directly executed tools,
> we really need to focus on keeping the Setup & Usage docs up to date.
> The fact we've been historically lax on that front is no excuse for
> perpetuating the problem for new additions.

Given an exchange on the tracker, I feel I should expand on this point.

Historically, our Setup & Usage documentation has *only* covered the
main Python executable, even though we actually install additional
tools, including pydoc, idle, 2to3 and now pysetup and pyvenv, and
provide additional documented and supported command line functionality
via command line execution of certain modules.

It is my view that this lack of centralised command line usage
documentation is an *oversight*, not a deliberate policy that should
be continued (hence the two new blocking issues for 3.3 as noted in my
previous post).

I've now created two more (lower priority) issues to cover the other
officially supported command line interfaces that are currently
missing from the setup & usage documentation:
Existing scripts (pydoc, idle, 2to3): http://bugs.python.org/issue14944
Supported -m commands: http://bugs.python.org/issue14945

Cheers,
Nick.

-- 
Nick Coghlan   |   ncoghlan at gmail.com   |   Brisbane, Australia