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> I can't believe that in 2025 it is still hard to find documentation for basic functionality in languages as ubiquitous as, say, Python. That’s why we get fam

> I can't believe that in 2025 it is still hard to find documentation for basic functionality in languages as ubiquitous as, say, Python. That’s why we get familiar with the documentation manual and bookmark the web version. Then there’s offline documentation browsers (dash, devdocs,…). > it is amazing to me that shells still exist in more-or-less the same form Bash and ZSH are quite good for their use cases (running command). and there are shell like fish that leans more towards interactive use instead of automation. Python’s primitive are not very good for launching commands.

arduinomancer 1y ago
I’ve found that as well It’s a good idea to take some time to understand how the official language docs are organized so that you can just jump there straight away and bypass all the noise
rovr138 1y ago
In the case of python, it's all built-in. People just don't know their tools. $ python Python 3.13.2 (main, Mar 6 2025, 08:26:01) [Clang 15.0.0 (clang-1500.3.9.4)] on darwin Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information. >>> import os >>> help(os) Same thing happens with so many other things.
- thunky 1y ago
  Not so great if you don't know the import or it's not intuitive (pathlib, shutil).
  - rovr138 1y ago
    You can search in module names and summaries, $ python Python 3.13.2 (main, Mar 6 2025, 08:26:01) [Clang 15.0.0 (clang-1500.3.9.4)] on darwin Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information. >>> help() Welcome to Python 3.13's help utility! If this is your first time using Python, you should definitely check out the tutorial at https://docs.python.org/3.13/tutorial/. Enter the name of any module, keyword, or topic to get help on writing Python programs and using Python modules. To get a list of available modules, keywords, symbols, or topics, enter "modules", "keywords", "symbols", or "topics". Each module also comes with a one-line summary of what it does; to list the modules whose name or summary contain a given string such as "spam", enter "modules spam". To quit this help utility and return to the interpreter, enter "q", "quit" or "exit". help> modules files Here is a list of modules whose name or summary contains 'files'. If there are any, enter a module name to get more help. compileall - Module/script to byte-compile all .py files to .pyc files. filecmp - Utilities for comparing files and directories. fileinput - Helper class to quickly write a loop over all standard input files. gzip - Functions that read and write gzipped files. idlelib.grep - Grep dialog for Find in Files functionality. linecache - Cache lines from Python source files. netrc - An object-oriented interface to .netrc files. pathlib - Object-oriented filesystem paths. plistlib - plistlib.py -- a tool to generate and parse MacOSX .plist files. shutil - Utility functions for copying and archiving files and directory trees. tempfile - Temporary files. ... I know there's search engines and there's use cases. I'm just trying to highlight that some people that work in a language day in and out, don't even know how to get their documentation. I just want people to know their tools better to ask smarter questions. It won't remove questions and that's fine. Just help me help you.
    - thunky 1y ago
      Thanks, I never knew about that modules search.

arduinomancer 1y ago

I’ve found that as well It’s a good idea to take some time to understand how the official language docs are organized so that you can just jump there straight away and bypass all the noise

rovr138 1y ago

In the case of python, it's all built-in. People just don't know their tools. $ python Python 3.13.2 (main, Mar 6 2025, 08:26:01) [Clang 15.0.0 (clang-1500.3.9.4)] on darwin Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information. >>> import os >>> help(os) Same thing happens with so many other things.

thunky 1y ago
Not so great if you don't know the import or it's not intuitive (pathlib, shutil).
- rovr138 1y ago
  You can search in module names and summaries, $ python Python 3.13.2 (main, Mar 6 2025, 08:26:01) [Clang 15.0.0 (clang-1500.3.9.4)] on darwin Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information. >>> help() Welcome to Python 3.13's help utility! If this is your first time using Python, you should definitely check out the tutorial at https://docs.python.org/3.13/tutorial/. Enter the name of any module, keyword, or topic to get help on writing Python programs and using Python modules. To get a list of available modules, keywords, symbols, or topics, enter "modules", "keywords", "symbols", or "topics". Each module also comes with a one-line summary of what it does; to list the modules whose name or summary contain a given string such as "spam", enter "modules spam". To quit this help utility and return to the interpreter, enter "q", "quit" or "exit". help> modules files Here is a list of modules whose name or summary contains 'files'. If there are any, enter a module name to get more help. compileall - Module/script to byte-compile all .py files to .pyc files. filecmp - Utilities for comparing files and directories. fileinput - Helper class to quickly write a loop over all standard input files. gzip - Functions that read and write gzipped files. idlelib.grep - Grep dialog for Find in Files functionality. linecache - Cache lines from Python source files. netrc - An object-oriented interface to .netrc files. pathlib - Object-oriented filesystem paths. plistlib - plistlib.py -- a tool to generate and parse MacOSX .plist files. shutil - Utility functions for copying and archiving files and directory trees. tempfile - Temporary files. ... I know there's search engines and there's use cases. I'm just trying to highlight that some people that work in a language day in and out, don't even know how to get their documentation. I just want people to know their tools better to ask smarter questions. It won't remove questions and that's fine. Just help me help you.
  - thunky 1y ago
    Thanks, I never knew about that modules search.