WEBVTT
Kind: captions:
Language: en-GB
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Hi! My name is Eduardo Ochs. I'm the author
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of an Emacs package called eev...
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and eev is about taking executable notes
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of everything that you do, and this
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presentation is about how I use this...
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how I finally found a way to take
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executable notes of what the python docs
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say.
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Let me explain that in another way. I've
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try to Learn Python many times, but
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hm, my brain is wired in a weird way, so
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it didn't work... and finally a few
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months ago I found a way of studying
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Python that finally clicked for me.
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The idea is that... well, it's here in
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the title - is a way to create short
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hyperlinks to the
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documentation of python.
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Here's an example.
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This file contains some some chunks
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of code from the Python tutorial and
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some links to the places in which
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I found these chunks of code.
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for example, if I run this link here
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it opens a certain page of the Python
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tutorial in my browser - note that it
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opens the local copy of the
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documentation -
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and if I
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run this link here it opens the source
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in .rst
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of the same page. So the first link opens
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the HTML and this one opens the
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RST. This is useful because in the
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beginning
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I was copying these chunks of code in
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the obvious way - I would simply
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visit the the documentation in HTML and
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I would mark
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a chunk... a snippet of code here and I
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would copy it to my notes.
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And then after a while I
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realized that it was much easier to
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simply go to the RST sources and to copy
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the chunks of code from there... and
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note that these links look quite similar.
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There's one difference here, that is
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this `r' that is prepended to the name
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of the function... the `r' means
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"open the RST"...
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and if I use the suffix `w' it means
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use the documentation on the web instead
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of using the local copy.
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So this one
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opens a local copy
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and this one
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takes a while
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and opens the
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the page of the documentation in the
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site of Python blah blah...
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and this thing here is
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executable in the usual eev sense, that
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we ca... if we type f8 several times here
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the f8s on the lines that start
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with red stars create a target buffer
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here... and in this case it creates a
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target buffer running Python, and if I
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type f8 on these other lines these are
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the lines are sent
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to that REPL.
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But anyway, let me go back.
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Most of the things that I'm going to
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present here are in the tutorial of this...
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package...
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we can go to the source code
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here in the eev directory - it's a file
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called eev-rstdoc.el but the best
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docs are in the tutorial, here...
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and the tutorial also has some
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executable
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chunks... some snippets of python
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code that are executable, but they
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don't have those nice colors... so
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apologies for that.
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We need to run this thing here to make
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everything work.
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This thing will define some functions
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with funny names that I will
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explain later.
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Let me explain something new.
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let's compare all these
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links here. They take this argument
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here and they expand the the argument in
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a certain way. For example this string is
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expanded to this long URL here... note that
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it got a prefix here,
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that's quite long... it got the .html here,
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and then the hash and the anchor here...
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and each one of the functions in the
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pydoc family expands this
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argument in a different way.
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The one that that opens the doc in the
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web uses another prefix -
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this one - and the one that opens the rst
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file ignores the part after the hash
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for technical reasons... I was never
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able to to find a good way to convert
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this hash into a string to search for,
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so to make something that goes to
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the right section in the link to the rst
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doc I have to convert by hand, and by
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trial and error, this thing here into a
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pointer to that section, like
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this one...
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in which the "_numeric-types:"
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is here.
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So all these links here are based on
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expansion, and this is easy to
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understand...
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but suppose that I want to
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create a link like this, or suppose that
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I'm browsing the docs here
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and I just I follow some some links...
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let me do something random here...
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suppose that I decide that this
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section is very interesting. How can I
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create a link to that? I can
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use this pilcrow symbol and the
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"Copy link address",
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and copy the link to
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my notes...
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and then the Python family...
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well, we saw the the functions in the
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Python family have a certain way - have
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several ways of expanding these
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short arguments... and they also have a
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certain way of
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shortening URLs like this one. If I type
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`M-x pdk' the message is this one.
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`pdk' is a mnemonic for
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"Python doc kill", and this
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"kill" means "copy to the kill ring"
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so if I type `M-x pdk' here it
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considers that this thing is a link
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to the python Docs, and it
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shortens this link in a certain way, and
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it kills a short link.
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I can insert the short link with C-y
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(yank)
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and then I can test this link to be sure
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that it points to where I want, and
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then I can delete this thing, and ta-da,
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now I have a short link, and of course I
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can modify this link by adding a suffix
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here...
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and in this case here
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I will have to change the identifier
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to something else...
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but I'm not going to do that now.
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This module of eev comes with three
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families predefined. One is a family that
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points to the the documentation of
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Python itself, another one points the
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documentation of SymPy, that is a program
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for symbolic computation, like for doing
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mathematics equations...
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and the other one points to the
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documentation of MatPlotLib.
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How do these families work?
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Each family has to be defined in two
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parts.
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Remember that
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eev has lots of functions
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like this one... this one
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is the most basic, and it is explained
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here, in this section of the main
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tutorial. This section explains that
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a sexp like this one produces lots of
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functions - produces a family of
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functions - and it does that by producing
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a certain chunk of code and then
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executing this chunk of code... and if we
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add a certain prefix here... `find-' and we
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execute this we can... instead of executing
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that chunk of code we can see what is
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that chunk of code. In the case of `code-c-d'
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it is this. It is a `setq`, several
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`defun's, and some comments here, with
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links to the documentation.
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In the case of rstdoc it's the same.
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We have this function here that defines
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the function in the python family...
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and we can run this to understand what
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this `code-rstdoc' does.
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It creates this temporary buffer here...
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with lots of `defun's, a `code-c-d' here,
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and lots of comments here... and the
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comments include some tests. For example
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we can use these functions here to test
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how the expansion works.
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And
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note that in this buffer here we don't
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have the paths that that this family
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uses. We don't have for example
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the URL that points to the site of
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Python, to the directory that contains
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the reference manual, or whatever... all
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these things are in another part of the
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definition of that family - that is a
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variable.
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If we execute this we go to the
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source code of eev-rstdoc,
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to the parts in which
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this variable is defined...
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and
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for each family we have a variable like
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this,
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whose value is a property
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list with several fields...
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these first fields are very easy to
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understand - they are used in the
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expansion... this one too. And these
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two fields are used in the shrinking -
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in the shortening - and
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this field here
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tells what is the name of the
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killing function
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so the fields of this thing here are
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used
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to generate...
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some fields are used to generate the
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code that appears here, and some fields
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are simply
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read by functions like this one, that
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consults the variable.
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Now the natural question is: how can we
00:11:53.000 --> 00:11:57.000
define new families? Or: how can we change
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a family like this one to point to
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another version of Python?
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There are some template-based functions
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for doing that. They are explained in
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this section of the tutorial...
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where is that?...
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oh God, it's far away...
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here.
00:12:20.000 --> 00:12:23.000
Suppose that we have a package foo, that
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we want to create a family that points
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to the docs
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of that package foo... so, we
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can execute this thing here, and it
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generates this
00:12:34.000 --> 00:12:37.000
this thing from a template.
00:12:37.000 --> 00:12:40.000
If we just want to modify a current
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definition we can run something like
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this - note that the family `:py'
00:12:44.000 --> 00:12:47.000
already exists, and instead of using
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placeholders in some of these
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URLs it will use the current values of
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the fields...
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so we can also use this modify
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existing families.
00:13:01.000 --> 00:13:05.000
Well these are the technical details.
00:13:05.000 --> 00:13:08.000
Now the natural question is: why do I
00:13:08.000 --> 00:13:12.000
want this? This doesn't
00:13:12.000 --> 00:13:14.000
any sense to me! Why should I
00:13:14.000 --> 00:13:15.000
try this?
00:13:15.000 --> 00:13:18.000
And the best answer: is for most people
00:13:18.000 --> 00:13:21.000
this way of using
00:13:21.000 --> 00:13:24.000
executable notes do not make any sense
00:13:24.000 --> 00:13:27.000
at all at first sight...
00:13:27.000 --> 00:13:30.000
so what I'm trying to do is: I'm trying
00:13:30.000 --> 00:13:33.000
to write to these tutorials with
00:13:33.000 --> 00:13:35.000
many examples that are very easy to run,
00:13:35.000 --> 00:13:38.000
and that examine data structures,
00:13:38.000 --> 00:13:40.000
and functions, and test things,
00:13:40.000 --> 00:13:46.000
and so on... so my main argument
00:13:46.000 --> 00:13:48.000
for convincing people to
00:13:48.000 --> 00:13:52.000
test this is: this is trivial to test -
00:13:52.000 --> 00:13:54.000
simply install eev and run this thing
00:13:54.000 --> 00:13:56.000
here, and run the examples, and probably
00:13:56.000 --> 00:13:58.000
you're going to find that this
00:13:58.000 --> 00:14:01.000
tutorial is fun to follow.
00:14:01.000 --> 00:14:03.000
So that's it! =)
