[Python-Dev] Best practice for documentation for std lib (original) (raw)

Steven D'Aprano steve at pearwood.info
Mon Sep 23 02:07:44 CEST 2013

On Sun, Sep 22, 2013 at 05:54:57AM -0700, Eli Bendersky wrote:

IMHO the right way to think about it is that the .rst files are by far the more important documentation. Sometimes we forget that most Python programmers are people who won't go into the source to read docstrings.

Docstrings are never more than one command away in the interactive interpreter:

help(some.function)

If you're going to the source to read docstrings, you're doing it wrong :-)

I always go for interactive help first, and the web docs second. The only reason I go to the source is to read the source code, not the docstrings.

-- Steven

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