[racket] Exploratory programming?

From: Greg Hendershott (greghendershott at gmail.com)
Date: Wed Dec 1 19:31:51 EST 2010

> I wonder whether help could display contracts if the module use provide/contract to export f.

I like this idea.

Maybe go a step further and allow per-parameter doc-string-ettes?
Because seeing

  get-pure-port: (url? (listof string?) . -> . input-port?)

Might still be too opaque. "What is this (listof string?) you speak
of?", sayeth the aspiring Racketeer on the PLimoTh PLanTation.

Whereas if contracts could have optional doc-string-ettes:

  (url? ["URL"] (listof string?) ["headers"] . -> . input-port?)

Then help could display something very close indeed to the shaded blue
box summary on docs.racket.org.

On Wed, Dec 1, 2010 at 11:02 AM, Matthias Felleisen
<matthias at ccs.neu.edu> wrote:
>
> On Dec 1, 2010, at 1:20 AM, Eli Barzilay wrote:
>
>>>
>>> Examples: comparing Python's help function to Racket's as a tool for
>>> introspecting objects at the REPL
>>> [...]
>>>> (define (f x y)
>>>    (+ x y))
>>>> (help f)
>>> Not found in any library's documentation: f
>>
>> This is because you didn't document it.
>
>
> I wonder whether help could display contracts if the module use provide/contract to export f.
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