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| 53 | <H1><A NAME="SECTION000200000000000000000"></A><A NAME="intro"></A> |
| 54 | <BR> |
| 55 | 1 Introduction |
| 56 | </H1> |
| 57 | |
| 58 | <P> |
| 59 | Python's documentation has long been considered to be good for a |
| 60 | free programming language. There are a number of reasons for this, |
| 61 | the most important being the early commitment of Python's creator, |
| 62 | Guido van Rossum, to providing documentation on the language and its |
| 63 | libraries, and the continuing involvement of the user community in |
| 64 | providing assistance for creating and maintaining documentation. |
| 65 | |
| 66 | <P> |
| 67 | The involvement of the community takes many forms, from authoring to |
| 68 | bug reports to just plain complaining when the documentation could |
| 69 | be more complete or easier to use. All of these forms of input from |
| 70 | the community have proved useful during the time I've been involved |
| 71 | in maintaining the documentation. |
| 72 | |
| 73 | <P> |
| 74 | This document is aimed at authors and potential authors of |
| 75 | documentation for Python. More specifically, it is for people |
| 76 | contributing to the standard documentation and developing additional |
| 77 | documents using the same tools as the standard documents. This |
| 78 | guide will be less useful for authors using the Python documentation |
| 79 | tools for topics other than Python, and less useful still for |
| 80 | authors not using the tools at all. |
| 81 | |
| 82 | <P> |
| 83 | The material in this guide is intended to assist authors using the |
| 84 | Python documentation tools. It includes information on the source |
| 85 | distribution of the standard documentation, a discussion of the |
| 86 | document types, reference material on the markup defined in the |
| 87 | document classes, a list of the external tools needed for processing |
| 88 | documents, and reference material on the tools provided with the |
| 89 | documentation resources. At the end, there is also a section |
| 90 | discussing future directions for the Python documentation and where |
| 91 | to turn for more information. |
| 92 | |
| 93 | <P> |
| 94 | If your interest is in contributing to the Python documentation, but |
| 95 | you don't have the time or inclination to learn <span class="LaTeX">LaTeX</span> and the |
| 96 | markup structures documented here, there's a welcoming place for you |
| 97 | among the Python contributors as well. Any time you feel that you |
| 98 | can clarify existing documentation or provide documentation that's |
| 99 | missing, the existing documentation team will gladly work with you |
| 100 | to integrate your text, dealing with the markup for you. Please |
| 101 | don't let the material in this document stand between the |
| 102 | documentation and your desire to help out! |
| 103 | |
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| 139 | <span class="release-info">Release 2.4.2, documentation updated on 28 September 2005.</span> |
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