[Python-Dev] undocumented help() function change in Python 3.4? (original) (raw)

Guido van Rossum guido at python.org
Tue Mar 11 15:54:14 CET 2014

I'm not sure I agree completely with this lax attitude about the contents of the docs, and especially the What's New parts of it (both Misc/NEWS and Doc/whatsnew/3.4.rst). I find it very useful to have these pinpoint exactly what made it into the tarball or zipfile or whatever other form I happen to find the release -- you don't always have the full hg logs lying around, nor do you always know from which exact revision or tag a tree was built.

Of course it's fine to improve the docs in an ongoing fashion, and if it's just a wording change to NEWS or whatsnew I don't mind missing it. But for specific entries I'd like to strive for completeness in each branch/tag/rc.

Also, tonds of thanks to RDM for his work on the new whatsnew!

On Tue, Mar 11, 2014 at 6:52 AM, R. David Murray <rdmurray at bitdance.com>wrote:

On Tue, 11 Mar 2014 10:15:21 +0100, Georg Brandl <g.brandl at gmx.net> wrote: > Am 11.03.2014 08:00, schrieb Ned Deily: > > In article <lfmbjj$nka$2 at ger.gmane.org>, > > Georg Brandl <g.brandl at gmx.net> wrote: > > > >> Am 11.03.2014 06:31, schrieb Ned Deily: > >> > In article > >> > <CADiSq7eif2yBkwR4NQLxi800CRqZWwVzmS11eNMt0PQnA23cLA at mail.gmail.com_ _>, > >> > Nick Coghlan <ncoghlan at gmail.com> wrote: > >> >> On 11 March 2014 11:29, R. David Murray <rdmurray at bitdance.com> wrote: > >> >> > The whatsnew updates (including the one for help) weren't copied into > >> >> > rc3. They will be in final though, unless Larry forgets. > >> >> > >> >> Oh, cool - yes, it will be good to have an up to date What's New > >> >> shipped, especially as part of the compiled Windows docs. > >> > > >> > I was going to bring that point up today. How are all the new whatsnew > >> > updates going to get into the 3.4.0 release? They've, correctly, been > >> > being pushed to the default branch. But, AFAIK, for them to show up in > >> > the 3.4.0 released docs we ship, all of the doc changes are going to > >> > need to be cherry picked (or a big mass diff from the default branch) > >> > into the 3.4 release branch, otherwise they will not be part of the > >> > release. (They certainly won't be part of the docs included with the > >> > installers I build unless they are in the 3.4 releasing branch.) > >> > >> Copying the file from default and doing just one commit in the releasing > >> branch should be the easiest way. > > > > That covers the whatsnew file but the changes RDM have been making > > affect other parts of the documentation and Misc/NEWS, too. > > NEWS can also be copied of course. As long as the others aren't critical > updates, just skip it for the final. > > Most people read the online docs anyway.

I don't think the NEWS changes are that important to copy either. None of the changes I made outside of whatsnew are substantive, they were either adding or fixing version tags, fixing formatting, or fixing typos or other copy-edit type things. At least, I can't remember anything that was substantive :) Oh, there was one thing that might be worth cherry picking: the change to the email docs. The new EmailMessage class was documented as being in the wrong module. But even that isn't a big deal, since it's a provisional class, and as Georg said most people read the online docs anyway, since they get the ongoing updates between releases. --David

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