[SciPy-user] Interpolation

[Travis Oliphant]

> In the meantime, and in response to Pearu Peterson's message yesterday
> about Python not having a standard for documentation processing. I don't
> know about you guys, but one of the first things I do with a new package,
> even before I install it, is check out the docs, to get an idea of what it
> does, and how it does it. 'info' is fine, once you've got the system
> installed (and this is not trivial for scipy, what with ATLAS, LAPACK and
> BLAS), but it is of no help to those who don't have it installed.
> Furthermore, I find it handy to have printed documentation. Not only can I
> find things more easily and quickly than most online help systems, but it
> allows me to work in my SciPy interactive window, and still keep the
> documentation in front of me. Without something written, I have to keep
> interrupting my typing with "info(this)" and "info(that)".
>
> For those who know SciPy from the inside out, info is probably all you'll
> ever need. But for those coming from the outside, I think something more is
> necessary, and I think the sooner SciPy has this (well formatted online
> HTML/PDF docs, and something printable, both viewable without having to
> install), the better for it.

Again, nobody is disagreeing with you.  Documentation has started but it
is typically not a favorite item for developers to spend valuable time
working on.

We are always anxious for people to contribute documentation.  One of the
difficulties has been deciding on what form that documentation should be
in.  An "automatic" users guide generated from the docstrings is a good
start and we should have something like that available with the package.

>
> I offer this not as a criticism, simply as a user observation. Thanks again
> for the tips.

It wasn't taken that way, and again we'd love any help we could get by way
of documentation....

Thanks,

-Travis O.