I wonder if there's a fifth function missing from the list, especially if 
one construes 'documentation' broadly as 'what a person wants to be able to 
find out about the tool'.  I'm torn between calling it Invitation or 
Questions, but it's basically "What sorts of things can this program, or 
feature, do for me; why might I want to invest in learning it?"

Leo seems to me to be somewhat lacking here, especially at its growing 
points.  An example that bothers me particularly: I was happy when I read 
that Leo now supports jupyter notebooks.  But I've tried to go through the 
documentation carefully and I can't discover what the support consists of.  
How can Leo enhance how I use a jupyter notebook?  The sort of thing I 
envisage goes:
"Can I do this useful (for my end purpose) thing with Leo?"   "Yes:  there 
is a module called yyy that can help you do that sort of thing.  Here's a 
sketch of how."

Scripting seems to be another candidate: start with an ability that a 
newbie can see an immediate use for, and demonstrate the script that 
accomplishes it.  Make this the first thing in the tutorial perhaps (so 
maybe what I'm saying is that tutorials would work better if they made it 
clear at the start why one might want to take them?)  Or there are other 
projects discussed in this group (ViewRendered, pyzo, ...) that I have paid 
no attention to because I never found a statement of what they could do for 
me or how they could enhance what I want to do.

Saying this in yet another way, I was struck ages ago by a sentence of 
Edward's:  "After that, leoPyRef.leo contains all the answers."   To which 
my immediate response was: "Yes, but where do I find the questions (for 
end-use purposes) that Leo offers good answers to?"

- geoff

On Saturday, 26 October 2019 19:05:57 UTC-2:30, Matt Wilkie wrote:
>
> Found by way of Guido von Rossum in python discussion forum:
> https://www.divio.com/blog/documentation/
>
> Basically: recognize there are 4 kinds of documentation, serving different 
> functions. Design, write and store them differently. It's in mixing them up 
> in one document/place that leads to mess and confusion on both the author 
> and consumer side. The four are: Tutorials, How-to's, Explanations, and 
> Reference.
>
> I found it to be a good read and intend to see how I can apply it to my 
> work.
>
> -matt
>

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