On Oct 26, 4:50 pm, William Stein <wst...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Oct 26, 2009 at 4:37 PM, John H Palmieri <jhpalmier...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>
> > Trac ticket #6820 (http://trac.sagemath.org/sage_trac/ticket/6820)
> > makes the following change:
>
> > sage: help()
>
> > no longer runs the interactive Python help utility. Instead, it
> > prints a message:
>
> > sage: help()
> > Welcome to Sage 4.2! To view the Sage tutorial in your web
> > browser,
> > type 'tutorial()', and to view the (very detailed) Sage reference
> > manual,
> > type 'manual()'. For help on any function, for example
> > 'matrix_plot', type
> > 'matrix_plot?' to see a help message, type 'browse_sage_doc
> > (matrix_plot)'
> > to view the same message in a web browser, and type
> > 'matrix_plot??' to look
> > at the function's source code.
>
> > To use Python's online help utility, type 'python_help()'.
>
> > (The ticket also implements the commands "tutorial", "manual", and
> > "python_help".) This is potentially a significant change, so I
> > thought I would bring it up for discussion. Is it a good idea?
>
> > John
>
> I use the following *all the time*:
>
> sage: import numpy
> sage: help(numpy)
> ... very nice numpy
> sage: numpy?
> .... totally different output from "help(numpy)"!
>
> 1. After your patch, if I type "help(numpy)" I get an error since your
> help takes no options. Why not make it work like before in that case?
This is easy to fix.
> 2. If I read the above output that you added, I would never think to
> type python_help(numpy), since you write that I should "To use
> Python's online help utility, type 'python_help()'."
So how about if it says:
Welcome to Sage 4.2! To view the Sage tutorial in your web
browser,
type 'tutorial()', and to view the (very detailed) Sage reference
manual, type 'manual()'. For help on any Sage function, for
example
'matrix_plot', type 'matrix_plot?' to see a help message, type
'help(matrix_plot)' to see a very similar message, type
'browse_sage_doc(matrix_plot)' to view a message in a web browser,
and
type 'matrix_plot??' to look at the function's source code.
To enter Python's interactive online help utility, type
'python_help()'.
To get help on a Python function, module or package, type 'help
(MODULE)' or
'python_help(MODULE)'.
John
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