[Python-Dev] MSI Documentation (original) (raw)

Tim Peters tim.peters at gmail.com
Sat Jul 31 02:57:41 CEST 2004

[Martin v. Löwis, on documenting MSI-building]

My problem is that I have no clue what bits deserve duplication. To fully understand the thing, starting from scratch, you need at least 50 pages of text. This would exceed the actual lines of code by a great number, and it would be like explaining Python syntax and semantics in comments of a Python script.

I think you can assume basic familiarity with MSI-building. Then, like anything else, you comment parts you found especially difficult, confusing, subtle, or delicate to work out -- even if they're clearly covered somewhere in the multiple gigabytes of MSDN verbiage, and it was just hard for you to find where. Sometimes crucial details are buried in footnotes. Or, if it's like any other MS API I've ever used, sometimes crucial details are plain missing, and "the thing that worked" was the result of a dozen or ten poke-and-hope attempts.

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