[Zope-dev] Reasons for the current API reference docs implementation?

[Chris McDonough]

I'm not sure there is a rationale, other than it was composed before
Interfaces existed and the "thing to do" at the time was to create docs
that went into the hurt^H^H^H^Hhelp system.  I think the "real" answer
would be to go and create interfaces for all API classes and turn that
into an API reference (assuming people would update the interfaces when
they updated the code.. but that's not a given either I guess).  I'm not
sure that exposing the docstrings of the classes themselves would be
much better than the current situation, but then again, I don't want to
get in your way if you want to spend time on this godforsaken task.

Adding insult to injury, I can't seem to get to zope.org... at least
each request takes more than an embarrassing 10 seconds, and I'm way too
impatient to wait for it, so I can't verify that the  real"API
reference" doesn't span more than the OFS help system docs.  I think it
may... IIRC DateTime, ZCatalog, and others are a part of the API
reference.

- C


On Fri, 2004-04-02 at 12:46, Paul Winkler wrote:
> Howdy,
> 
> I was thinking of writing a proposal for killing the current
> API reference (in lib/python/Products/OFSP/help)
> and replacing it with the actual docstrings of the actual classes.
> 
> But before I write the proposal ... can somebody tell me
> what was the rationale for the way it is?