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<p class="MsoNormal">Hi Folks,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Been thinking some more about the old chestnut of documentation. The lack thereof is a well understood issue, and to be honest one which is not going to change any time soon as no one has the time to maintain a manual – this is fine and
well understood. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">As a kind of “patch” for this I was wondering if it would be possible to have a forum where someone could ask for e.g. documentation for a currently undocumented function, which could then be added to the subversion in the code itself.
For example:<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">cctbx_project/cctbx/xray/structure.py<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">…<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> def structure_factors(self, anomalous_flag=None, d_min=None,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> algorithm=None,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> cos_sin_table=False,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> quality_factor=None,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> u_base=None,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> b_base=None,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> wing_cutoff=None):<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">what is cos_sin_table for? with things like this there is the attitude that it is safe to ignore, however if we’re writing code to guide people’s experiments it would be good to be sure of this. Some simple documentation explaining this
would be very useful.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I’m definitely not suggesting (i) that anyone writes a manual or (ii) that all undocumented functions are suddenly documented, only that there is a mechanism set up that someone could ask about this and that someone who knows the answer
could commit the changes to cctbx and then reply with the diffs – perhaps the way that stackoverflow works, or an email, or something really lightweight. Even this mailing list could be used I guess?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I would be happy to help with this, though the above example is not one where I know the answer!<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Thoughts?<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Best wishes,<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Graeme<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Dr. Graeme Winter</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Senior Software Scientist</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">Diamond Light Source</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">+44 1235 778091 (work)</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"">+44 7786 662784 (work mobile)</span><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
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<br><P align=justify> </P>
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