<story><title>This Is What Python Beginners Have to Deal With</title><url>http://pythonforengineers.com/this-is-what-python-beginners-have-to-deal-with/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>junke</author><text>&amp;gt; Now, compare that to what happens when I search for the same in Python. I get this:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;docs.python.org&amp;#x2F;2&amp;#x2F;library&amp;#x2F;re.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;docs.python.org&amp;#x2F;2&amp;#x2F;library&amp;#x2F;re.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;I clicked and I saw the kind of technical documentation I love to read: precise, with examples. There is an introduction to  Python&amp;#x27;s flavor of regular expressions, which highlights the potential problems (backslashes). This is not targetted at novice &lt;i&gt;programmers&lt;/i&gt;, though.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; That’s the generic re library page. I have to scroll down to see which function I need.&lt;p&gt;Did you notice the table of contents on the left?
You might want to try Ctrl+F. But you might have to scroll down too, I don&amp;#x27;t deny it. You have to read, too.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; And even then, all I get is a hundred words of generic description. No examples.&lt;p&gt;Ctrl+F &amp;quot;example&amp;quot; highlights the table of contents. There is an example for &amp;quot;findall&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; I then have to Google Python regex findall examples, and go through a dozen blogs written in 2008.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;lmgtfy.com&amp;#x2F;?q=regex+findall+example#&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;lmgtfy.com&amp;#x2F;?q=regex+findall+example#&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Not really, there are plenty of recent posts (stackoverflow,  etc). And having articles from 2008 would not even imply  that they are incorrect. In order to see how old your post is, I have to look at the source, but even though it is quite recent, it contains factual errors.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Illniyar</author><text>I think this is the exact type of comments that the author comes out against.&lt;p&gt;You aren&amp;#x27;t putting yourself in the shoes of a beginner.&lt;p&gt;Let&amp;#x27;s say I&amp;#x27;m a beginner, and I want to just experiment with the language a bit (I&amp;#x27;ve already read some tutorials or am not interested) - since I&amp;#x27;m just trying to get the feel of the language and ecosystem, I&amp;#x27;m not trying to get a deep understanding of the language and tools - I want to match a regex.&lt;p&gt;In the C++ and PHP examples he provided, the basic example is easily found - it&amp;#x27;s basically two actions - search in google and scroll to the example.&lt;p&gt;What you are suggesting takes several more steps - ctrl-f for a text that you might get wrong (you&amp;#x27;ve searched for sample instead of example for instance), iterate until you get the right place, etc...&lt;p&gt;And that&amp;#x27;s assuming you even realize that you should run ctrl-f, why should you?&lt;p&gt;The main issue though is that if I&amp;#x27;m a beginner I&amp;#x27;m doing this kind of searches several times a minute - to have to stop and realize what to look for every time is extremely frustrating.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve worked with Ruby,Python, Java and Javascript - python&amp;#x27;s (and django&amp;#x27;s) documentation is extremely verbose and rarely straightforward compared to the other ones.</text></comment>
<story><title>This Is What Python Beginners Have to Deal With</title><url>http://pythonforengineers.com/this-is-what-python-beginners-have-to-deal-with/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>junke</author><text>&amp;gt; Now, compare that to what happens when I search for the same in Python. I get this:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;docs.python.org&amp;#x2F;2&amp;#x2F;library&amp;#x2F;re.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;docs.python.org&amp;#x2F;2&amp;#x2F;library&amp;#x2F;re.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;I clicked and I saw the kind of technical documentation I love to read: precise, with examples. There is an introduction to  Python&amp;#x27;s flavor of regular expressions, which highlights the potential problems (backslashes). This is not targetted at novice &lt;i&gt;programmers&lt;/i&gt;, though.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; That’s the generic re library page. I have to scroll down to see which function I need.&lt;p&gt;Did you notice the table of contents on the left?
You might want to try Ctrl+F. But you might have to scroll down too, I don&amp;#x27;t deny it. You have to read, too.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; And even then, all I get is a hundred words of generic description. No examples.&lt;p&gt;Ctrl+F &amp;quot;example&amp;quot; highlights the table of contents. There is an example for &amp;quot;findall&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; I then have to Google Python regex findall examples, and go through a dozen blogs written in 2008.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;lmgtfy.com&amp;#x2F;?q=regex+findall+example#&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;lmgtfy.com&amp;#x2F;?q=regex+findall+example#&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Not really, there are plenty of recent posts (stackoverflow,  etc). And having articles from 2008 would not even imply  that they are incorrect. In order to see how old your post is, I have to look at the source, but even though it is quite recent, it contains factual errors.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>int_19h</author><text>Regarding the docs layout and &amp;quot;having to scroll down to see which function&amp;quot;, I also don&amp;#x27;t quite get it. From my perspective, it&amp;#x27;s a very nice trait of Python docs compared to PHP docs, that the former actually explain &lt;i&gt;how&lt;/i&gt; to use the various parts of the API together, before giving descriptions for every specific API. It&amp;#x27;s simply a much better way to digest it and learn to use it without making a mess (speaking of which and PHP...).</text></comment>