I’m getting too used to #puredata (puredata.info) — I just right-clicked a python class and expected a hypermedia “help” option with params, example usage etc.
Jetbrains PyCharm does have an inline documentation feature, which (when invoked via a complex keyboard “shortcut”), produces this gem:
Even when this feature does work, it shows code “documentation” in a monospace font, typically with no usage example or links to other relevant documentation, as is standard in puredata.
Our tools are inadequate.
Update: added puredata documentation for comparison:
In case it’s not clear from the screenshot, that usage example is live code — it can be interacted with, changed, copied and pasted, played with, experimented with. We typically can’t do that with existing text-based code, let alone mere usage examples.
More thoughts I want to add to this, but I will write them up as a full article.