I’ve recently been coding away on an open source application and I need to embed multiple scripting languages. I started with Perl, googled for a while, hit some Perldoc, and my embedder is working flawlessly. The whole process was relatively painless. I then went on to build the rest of my framework around my Perl embedder.
Now it’s time for the Python embedder…
Step 1 : Some Python code to execute in the embedder.
I get on the web, do some googling, and i’m on my way. Some simple functions with some screen I/O, nothing exciting, but functional. Life is good.
Step 2 : The embedder in C
Once again, I hit the web, do some googling, find lots of docs… and lots of people asking questions. The Python doc for embedding/extending is quite long winded and not overly informative. It also makes a point of stating that most people who want to embed Python “discover” that they should just write their whole application in Python instead of C. *cough cough* Yeah well, that’s not going to work for me. I can’t make heads or tails of these docs, i’m not finding any valuable answers in forums and such… so now i’m screwed.
But wait! There’s IRC. Whenever I need help with opensource software, there’s always someone on the IRC. Sure enough, I hit the python site, find the IRC channel, jump onto FreeNode and hit #python. Bingo! There’s ALOT of people in here… i’m good to roll.
I write out my question using clear language, no l33t speak or anything, and try for a solid explanation of what I need. 5 minutes go by, finally, somebody kicks in a link to the python docs site… WHAT?!?!?!?!? Did this jackass just RTFM me? What an ass.
So, I inform him politely that i’ve already read the docs but they’re not overly clear for what i’m trying to do. So I explain AGAIN as to exactly what I want to do with the interpreter. He then sends me a link to the C API from the docs site and suggests one of the functions… the one he suggests doesn’t do anything close to what I want. Great. Thanks again for RTFM’ing me.
After a few more message bounces, I finally give up on this guy. He’s obviously not reading what i’m typing and doesn’t know what i’m asking for. Basically, he’s never done this. Yay.
So, the point here is that in a matter of 10 minutes, he alienated me. He didn’t care enough about new users to try to answer my question w/o giving me an RTFM. Dude, i’m a C programmer, you don’t think i’m used to looking at the damned manual by now?
Congrats, if it weren’t for the fact that I need python for this particular project, i’d tell this jackass to hit the road and just stick with Perl. This shows yet another fundamental problem in open source… the elitist community. Just because you can write some stuff in Python doesn’t mean you’re that awesome. Help the new people, welcome them in to the community… that’s the key to success.
But that’s just me, I could be wrong. 
I need the Python equivalent of barrier.await() from Java.
“python barrier” brought me to this web site rather than documentation
on the threading concept of barrier. Yuk!
Python needs clearer examples and easier to read docs.