GeezerVison

IIRC there was a decision to not litter the docs the trailing backslash. People find it confusing and it doesn't seem to help them in any way.

@rhettinger sorry, I fixed it. but other changes are relevant, isn't it?

IIRC there was a decision to not litter the docs the trailing backslash. People find it confusing and it doesn't seem to help them in any way.

@rhettinger, the Editorial Board's recent decision was that PEP-570 syntax should be used in documentation. This is now documented in the devguide; see python/devguide#1344. The Editorial Board has a standing delegation from the Steering Council on all documentation matters: https://github.com/python/steering-council/blob/main/process/standing-delegations.md#documentation-editorial-board

@AlexWaygood

the Editorial Board's recent decision was that PEP-570 syntax should be used in documentation. This is now documented in the devguide; see python/devguide#1344. The Editorial Board has a standing delegation from the Steering Council on all documentation matters: https://github.com/python/steering-council/blob/main/process/standing-delegations.md#documentation-editorial-board

So should I put / back or wait for rhettinger's answer?

the Editorial Board's recent decision was that PEP-570 syntax should be used in documentation.

Then this PR can go forward.

It's a bummer though. Signatures with trailing backslashes are intrinsically less readable. People who are only occasional users of Python find it confusing (likely because no other language does this). This makes the docs less accessible to average users. A high school student shouldn't have to see len(obj, /). It just gets in the way of learning and makes Python look cryptic even for its simplest functions.

A high school student shouldn't have to see len(obj, /).

I think they use other sources of knowledge, and most likely the docs reader is familiar with python syntax.

And also it would be nice to add "skip news" label

I think they use other sources of knowledge, and most likely the docs reader is familiar with python syntax.

My direct experience says otherwise. When people take an introductory python course, the positional-only/keword-only syntax is rarely covered. There is just too much else to talk about. Introductory books on Python typically defer discussion on this topic until all other core topics have been covered.

Also, it seems like an anti-goal to reduce accessiblity and expect some user categories to search elsewhere for knowledge. AFAICT, we've always wanted to maximize accessibility for all users.

At a recent Editorial Board meeting, we re-affirmed the principle of the reference documentation being precise. The function signatures should have slashes to indicate arguments that are positional-only. It can be a bit confusing to new learners, so we'll be experimenting with adjustments to the Sphinx rendering to help people understand the syntax.

This PR is stale because it has been open for 30 days with no activity.