Yes, using DrRacket it's really really easy to interface with help, explore libraries, etc., at least as far as I have found for my humble needs. It uses racket/doc/search/search-context.html.
On Tue, Nov 30, 2010 at 10:55, Richard Lawrence < richard.lawre...@berkeley.edu> wrote: > Dear Racketeers: > > Apologies in advance for what will probably be a long-winded newbie > question. I'm wondering how one goes about "exploring" the Racket > libraries. That is, how does one find out things like: > > 1. which modules are likely to contain functions useful for a particular > task > 2. what names a given module exports > 3. more information about the objects exported by a module: e.g., > brief descriptions, their types, what methods they respond to, ... > > Here's some background. Most of the programming I have done is in > Python. One of my favorite features in Python is that > > >>> help(X) > > gives useful information for just about any object X. This is great for > exploring modules, learning about the methods and member variables of > classes, and finding out what functions do; it's an important > "bottom-up" tool for exploring the language and libraries. In Python, I > can often think, "I need something similar to, but not quite the same > as, X; X is defined in module M; so let's do help(M) to see if M has the > function I want." Often, I can tell at a glance over the docstrings that > the thing I need -- or something related to it -- is there. (This kind > of "bottom-up" exploration is complemented by the documentation for the > Python standard library, which provides a nice "top-down" reference.) > > I know that REPL-based interaction is de-emphasized in Racket. Does > that mean that the kind of "bottom-up" exploration of the language that > I'm describing is de-emphasized as well? Should the documentation be > the first (only?) place I go to learn about modules and their contents? > If so, what's the best way to access and search the documentation while > programming? > > Please understand that I'm not ragging on Racket's documentation here; > the documentation is truly excellent. I guess one way of asking my > question might be this. I tend to think of the documentation as > something I must sit down and read for a while, partly because the > examples are often extended and build on each other, and partly because > of the psychology of jumping out of Emacs into a browser.[1] Is there a > different way of using and thinking about them? In particular, is there > a way of using them that corresponds to the uses of help() in Python? > > Thanks for your thoughts! > > Best, > Richard > > > [1] I have so far mostly stayed away from DrRacket, because I know Emacs > well and haven't felt the desire or need so far to learn another > environment. Is that my problem? Does DrRacket support the kind of > bottom-up exploration in the documentation that I'm trying to describe? > > _________________________________________________ > For list-related administrative tasks: > http://lists.racket-lang.org/listinfo/users >
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