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<title>1 Introduction </title>
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<H1><A NAME="SECTION000200000000000000000"></A><A NAME="intro"></A>
<BR>
1 Introduction
</H1>
<P>
Python's documentation has long been considered to be good for a
free programming language. There are a number of reasons for this,
the most important being the early commitment of Python's creator,
Guido van Rossum, to providing documentation on the language and its
libraries, and the continuing involvement of the user community in
providing assistance for creating and maintaining documentation.
<P>
The involvement of the community takes many forms, from authoring to
bug reports to just plain complaining when the documentation could
be more complete or easier to use. All of these forms of input from
the community have proved useful during the time I've been involved
in maintaining the documentation.
<P>
This document is aimed at authors and potential authors of
documentation for Python. More specifically, it is for people
contributing to the standard documentation and developing additional
documents using the same tools as the standard documents. This
guide will be less useful for authors using the Python documentation
tools for topics other than Python, and less useful still for
authors not using the tools at all.
<P>
The material in this guide is intended to assist authors using the
Python documentation tools. It includes information on the source
distribution of the standard documentation, a discussion of the
document types, reference material on the markup defined in the
document classes, a list of the external tools needed for processing
documents, and reference material on the tools provided with the
documentation resources. At the end, there is also a section
discussing future directions for the Python documentation and where
to turn for more information.
<P>
If your interest is in contributing to the Python documentation, but
you don't have the time or inclination to learn <span class="LaTeX">LaTeX</span> and the
markup structures documented here, there's a welcoming place for you
among the Python contributors as well. Any time you feel that you
can clarify existing documentation or provide documentation that's
missing, the existing documentation team will gladly work with you
to integrate your text, dealing with the markup for you. Please
don't let the material in this document stand between the
documentation and your desire to help out!
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<span class="release-info">Release 2.4.3, documentation updated on 29 March 2006.</span>
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