[Python-ideas] Linking Doug's stdlib documentation to our main modules doc.

[Nick Coghlan]

On Sun, Mar 20, 2011 at 11:30 AM, Jack Diederich <jackdied at gmail.com> wrote:
> Would someone please just commit a doc fix to include the links?  No
> one who is against it seems to care enough that they would revert
> them.

While the philosophy of "rough consensus and running code" does hold
in general, there's no need to quite *that* high-handed about it.

The general objections to pervasive linking to an external resource
are sound (perceived endorsement, risk of link rot, risk of outdated
content).

However, I (along with many others) am of the opinion that those
concerns are of minimal significance in this case due to the open
nature of the licensing on PyMOTW, and especially given the potential
gain in allowing *new* Python users to more easily come to grips with
Python modules, without needing to ask questions of the internet in
general (and search engines in particular). The fact that the author
and current maintainer of PyMOTW is an active member of the Python
community in other ways certainly helps, but it isn't critical to the
question of whether or not such links would improve the documentation.

That said, with the BDFL and the current docs maintainer both in
favour of the proposal, discussion should really be moving more
towards "How?" rather than "Whether or not?".

Cheers,
Nick.

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