I'm a Perlhead trying to learn the Way of Python. I like Python overall, but every once in a while I find myself trying to figure out why Python does some things the way it does. At the moment I'm scratching my head over Python's docstrings. As far as I understand this is the standard way to document Python code. I think that's fine for simple functions, but I have some functions that require a very long docstring to document, and somehow I find it a bit disconcerting to stick a few screenfuls of text between the top line of a function definition and its body. I guess I'm still a lot more comfortable with Perl's POD, which allows more flexibility on the placement of the documentation relative to the source code.
I expect that the reply to this quibble about very long docstrings will be something like: if your function requires several screenfuls of text to document, then it is too complex or it is doing too much; refactor it into a collection of simpler functions that will have shorter docstrings. Fair enough. In general I agree with this sentiment, except that I think that sometimes even simple functions require a lot of documentation. For example, I want to document a function that takes a dictionary as argument, and this dictionary is expected to have 5 keys. (When the number of mandatory arguments gets above 4, I find that it's too difficult to remember their order, so I resort to using a dictionary as the single argument.) The semantics for each of these keys needs to be described. Plus, of course, I need to describe what the function returns. That's a few screenfuls right there... I guess this is a rambling way to ask: are docstrings *it* as far Python documentation goes? Or is there a second, more flexible system? Then again, I suppose that Python's relative formal rigidity is considered by many to be a strength. Which means that, to be comfortable with Python, one has to learn to like this (relatively) rigid structure... But I thought I'd ask. :) Kynn -- NOTE: In my address everything before the first period is backwards; and the last period, and everything after it, should be discarded. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
