[dox] List of Phobos documentation improvement candidates (Was: Re: Can we get a forum section devoted to documentation? [dox])

[H. S. Teoh]

On Fri, Aug 16, 2013 at 08:25:00PM +0200, Andre Artus wrote:
> On Friday, 16 August 2013 at 18:09:04 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu
> wrote:
[...]
> >Things should happen organically, i.e. creating a specialized
> >group should follow a need substantiated by increased volume of
> >specialized discussion in the general group. At this point there
> >is nothing in that vein.
[...]
> I understand were you are coming from. And, while I currently feel
> that it's a bit of a catch-22 situation, I think it is worth at
> least trying out your suggestion of marking document related threads
> with "[dox]".

Alright, I'll start.

Here's a list of Phobos modules that need some documentation facelist.
For fairness' sake, I gleaned these from:

	http://dlang.org/phobos-prerelease/index.html
	
as opposed to the docs for the official release, so that they closer
reflect what things will look like at the next D release.

1) The above page itself needs work. Right now it's just a very spotty
incomplete list of seemingly-random pieces of Phobos. It looks like the
relic from a bygone era before Phobos docs had a navbar on the left; so
my first thought would be to kill off that incomplete module list (leave
that to the navbar). My second thought would be to group the modules
under more logical categories so that newbies would know which modules
tend to be used together (e.g., std.algorithm and std.range tend to be
used together a lot IME).

2) std.algorithm: the state of the current docs is not bad, but could
use some improvement. The first paragraph could be expanded to explain
what this module is all about. The part about string lambdas (2nd
paragraph) may need to be tagged with a note about possible deprecation,
judging from discussions in the other thread. If not, at the very least
the code example should show how to use the new lambda syntax:

	sort!((a,b) => a < b)(...);

I'm not sure what to make of the cheat sheet, as it seems to repeat most
of the table of links at the top of the page. But maybe it's good for
short code snippets to remind you how to use each function, so maybe it
can be left alone for now.

3) std.array: desperately needs a more detailed explanation at the top
to explain why this module is even needed (newbies would wonder: doesn't
D have built-in arrays? Why do we need this module then?). Not enough
code examples.

4) std.ascii: unhelpful description. Why do we even need this module
when D uses UTF-8 by default? When should we use this module and when
should we use std.uni? Also, needs an overview of what this module
provides (string constants, character categorization, case conversions).

5) std.base64: unhelpful description. Doesn't explain what is base-64
and why we should care. What are the applications of base-64 anyway?
Who would want to use this stuff? Without more details, a newcomer
wouldn't know.

6) std.bigint: badly needs more code examples, with explanations.

7) std.bitmanip: needs more explanation about what this module is, why
we need it, etc.. Needs categorization of what is provided (bitfields,
endianness-related functions, anything else).

8) std.compiler: need code examples of how to use the stuff here. Maybe
using version blocks. Maybe sample music composed in D_major... oh wait.
Wrong forum. :-P

9) std.complex: needs more code examples. Maybe a little more
explanation about what's going on with "built-in types" and why those
will be replaced.

10) std.concurrency: needs higher-level module description, like what's
the use of low-level messaging systems. Need to provide adequate context
for where/when this module should be used. Needs to link to other doc
pages that discuss threads, processes, etc..

11) std.container: badly needs a better description. The table of
operations with complexity guarantees needs a bit more explanation about
what this all means. Maybe a link to somewhere (wikipedia perhaps) that
explains the concept of complexity and why it matters. Also, need an
overview of what containers are provided and example code on how to use
them.

12) std.conv: the one-line description is cute, but inadequate. Need
code examples on common usage. Need to explain in more detail how to
make user-defined types usable with to!() (e.g., need to define opCast,
ctor requirements, etc.). Need module overview about what's provided
(to, octal, parse, emplace). Need code examples.

13) std.csv: Not bad, but could use an overview of module contents with
links to each main function/struct (ala std.algorithm / std.range).

14) std.datetime: Not bad. It would be nice to add links to actual
functions/types in the module overview.

15) std.encoding: needs more code examples. Overview of module contents.

16) std.exception: needs higher-level overview of what's in this module,
with categorized functions/types.  Code examples for assertThrown & co.,
as well as explanations of why we need them.

17) std.file: needs more code examples. Module contents overview.

18) std.format: there are a lot of good docs here, but buried in
hard-to-find places. Needs module overview, with code examples. There
also appear to be some DDOC typos here. Especially needed is: how to
make your own user-defined types usable with std.format. What are the
possible hooks, example code of how they are used, etc..

19) std.functional: need more explanation of what this module is all
about. Motivation: why do we care about functions manipulating other
functions? There are some code examples here but could use better
motivated examples, like when/where such features would be useful. How
this relates to functional programming, etc..

20) std.getopt: not bad. Maybe add some examples of an actual shell
session and how getopt parses things. Explain what args[0] means (this
is very non-obvious to people unfamiliar with command-line UIs!).

21) std.json: needs proper description and code examples.

22) std.math: needs categorized summary of module contents.

23) std.mathspecial: needs code examples. Explanation of why this isn't
part of std.math.

24) std.mmfile: needs a LOT of explanation of what this is, and why it
might be useful. Code examples.

25) std.numeric: needs adequate explanation of what this module does and
why it's needed. Why isn't it part of std.math, what's the difference,
etc.. Categorized summary of module contents.

26) std.outbuffer: needs explanation of what this module is. Code
examples.

27) std.parallelism: not bad. A linked overview of module contents would
be nice.

28) std.path: needs linked overview of module contents. Why this isn't
part of std.file. In fact, the Phobos index page should group std.file,
std.stdio, and std.path together, and explain what's the difference
between them, and what each module covers in terms of file-related
operations.

29) std.process: pretty good! Maybe explain how this relates to
std.parallelism, std.concurrency, etc.. The difference may not be
obvious to newcomers. Possibly put this explanation in the Phobos index
page.

30) std.random: linked overview of module contents would be nice. More
code examples. Maybe a brief discussion on various RNG issues, like
measure of randomness, reproducible/non-reproducible sequences,
cryptographic strength, etc..

31) std.range: not bad (if I say so myself ;-P). More code examples
would be nice. As well as motivating examples of when you might want to
use each range type.

32) std.regex: pretty good!

33) std.signals: ugly. The links to various forum discussion threads is
a poor substitute for a well-written summary of the contents of said
discussions. Needs more code examples and applications.

34) std.socket: needs a module description!! And many more code
examples. And module contents overview.

35) std.socketstream: not sure if we want to spend more effort
documenting this, since it's slated for replacement, but might not hurt
in the short term to do so.

36) std.stdio: very unhelpful description. Should explain exactly what
this module does for people who *don't* know C, what types / functions
it exports, code examples of how to use them. E.g., how to open / close
a file, how to read/write text data, how to read/write binary data.
Explain range interface for files. Caveats on the transience of byLine.

37) std.cstream, std.stream: not sure how much to do for these, since
they're slated for replacement.

38) std.string: need better description. Why this module exists (aren't
strings built-in in D?), what it provides (linked overview of contents),
more code examples.

39) std.system: explain what this module is, why we need it, when it
should be used. Code examples (*motivating* code examples, not just
random code snippets that happens to use the symbols exported here!).
This should be grouped with std.compiler in the Phobos index page.

40) std.traits: need to elaborate on description. Brief discussion of
metaprogramming maybe? With motivating code examples. Need linked
overview of contents. There's a lot of stuff in here; grouping into
logical categories should be more helpful.

41) std.typecons: need better description. Explain basic usage, what it
means, etc.. The current code example is rather abstruse to a newcomer;
needs more down-to-earth explanations of what exactly is going on in the
code. Needs overview of contents. More code examples. Things like Flag
should be highlighted so that newbies pick up on the concept and use
Flag instead of bools everywhere.

42) std.typetuple: need proper explanation of the difference between
TypeTuple, std.range.Tuple, and compile-time "tuples" (SymbolTuples, as
Ali calls them). This is very confusing for newbies (and even for
experienced D coders!). Overview of module contents.

43) std.uni: I think Dmitry's new std.uni hasn't been updated on
dlang.org yet, so I'll refrain from commenting for now. From what I
remember, the new docs (and code, of course!) are far better than the
one you see on dlang.org, so probably we don't have to worry about it.

44) std.uri: the description could use some elaboration. And code
examples.

45) std.utf: need to elaborate description. How this relates to std.uni.
Example code. Issues to deal with when interfacing with C code
(toUTF*z).

46) std.uuid: not bad!

47) std.variant: not bad. Could use more code examples in a few places.
Maybe higher-level discussion of usage, motivation, potential issues,
etc.. Overview of module contents.

48) std.xml: slated for replacement; so just let be for now?

49) std.zip: Need better module description, overview of contents. How
this relates to std.zlib.

50) std.zlib: why this isn't part of std.zip. Code examples!!

51) std.net.curl: not bad.

52) std.net.isemail: need code examples!

53) std.digest.*: not bad! Phobos index page needs to group these
together and explain how each piece relates to the others.

54) std.windows.charset: explain why this isn't part of std.encoding.
Code examples. (Also, why is the CSS broken for this page on dlang.org?)

Phew, I never realized Phobos was *this* big! This covers only std.*,
but there's still etc.* and core.*. Lots of work ahead of us!


T

-- 
Your inconsistency is the only consistent thing about you! -- KD