[Python-Dev] The socket HOWTO (original) (raw)

Eli Bendersky eliben at gmail.com
Sat May 21 17:48:37 CEST 2011

I would like to suggest that we remove the socket HOWTO (currently at http://docs.python.org/dev/howto/sockets.html)

My main issue with this document is that it doesn't seem to have a well-defined destination: - people who know sockets won't learn anything from it - but people who don't know sockets will probably find it clear as mud (for example, what's an "INET" or "STREAM" socket? what's "select"?)

I definitely recall finding this document useful when I first learned Python. I knew socket programming from other languages, and the document helped to see how it maps to Python. That said, I must agree that there is probably no place for such a tutorial in Python's official documentation. Python is a widely-general purpose language, and sockets programming is just one of a plethora of things it supports, so a special treatment for sockets probably isn't warranted, especially given that the socket module itself is a relatively thin wrapper over the OS socket interface.

I don't think a rewrite will help either. To describe socket programming in full, without missing anything and being accurate will require no less than a small book (and in fact many such books already exist).

Therefore, I'm +1 on removing it from the official docs. It can be relegated to the Python wiki, where it can be improved if someone wishes to contribute to that.

Eli

More information about the Python-Dev mailing list