It&#x27;s been a Common Lisp problem forever.Go to Github and do a simple search just to see how many projects are nearing completion, but then dropped at some random point never to be touched again. The README.md is almost always impeccable, and go into great detail about the upcoming plans that were already dropped years ago. Real go-getters, that bunch.Even better, add &quot;quantum&quot; to your search, and nearly all of them that aren&#x27;t from the well-known quantum compute companies are like that. They really stand out among their peers. In a laughable way.Lisp people can&#x27;t resist getting into something, and then just turning away without notice when they realize they&#x27;re in over their heads. How many Lisp &quot;books&quot; and &quot;tutorials&quot; are being written over decades now. Especially the quantum ones?Lisp &quot;tutorials&quot; are the worst because it is so obvious the writer is learning at the same time they&#x27;re writing. You&#x27;re basically learning their mistakes as verified gospel. Only once you get some experience, or a better course, do you realize how much those &quot;toots&quot; lead you astray.Even the YouTube Lisp courses that pretend they are complete aren&#x27;t. They get about half way through, and then rush through a one pager on OOP programming to end it. Ridiculous.I love the Lisp language. I really dislike its &quot;meh&quot; culture.

For some reason, many Python libraries use readthedocs.io, their documentation is sparse, very shallow and the API reference is left undocumented, that I&#x27;m usually displeased whenever I see that website and colour scheme. I know that I&#x27;m gonna be left wanting. Conversely, the Elixir documentation is so high quality that I&#x27;m put in a good mood whenever I land on their version of the documentation browser (generated by ExDoc).It&#x27;s not the fault of readthedocs per se, I guess it&#x27;s what most projects that want a barebones documentation site and call it a day use.

&quot;Duck typed&quot; languages like python always force you to check the documentation three times just to make sure the author doesn&#x27;t believe that ducks bark, I don&#x27;t see it ever getting better unless we move away from them entirely.

I came from Python and C, for me Java has these issues. I almost never find what I want about java libraries, I waste a lot of time this way. I&#x27;m sure you could measure this, but I guess we are just used to read code in different ways.

Ruby I have found to be incredibly difficult in this regard as well.

There is this tool: sphinx. Helps you making documentation + website. Can read you code and document it with your docstrings. Generates some okish documentation and is kind of boilerplate if you create a library.There do all these websites come from.

I heard (somewhere, can&#x27;t recall where, maybe The Bike Shed podcast with original hosts) it summarised as something like &#x27;python is documented, ruby is tested&#x27;, (as in library code, not the language itself) which is obviously a ridiculous generalisation&#x2F;hyperbole, but it does seem to hold somewhat true, that they do more (resp. less) of those things respectively.

&gt; Almost like spending lots of time making a documentation page is a rite of passage for python devs.To be fair Python doesn’t have a good story for declaring static types, IDEs which can guide you as a library-consumer, nor for storing inline documentation&#x2F;code-doc alongside your functions or classes.And then all that stuff has to go elsewhere in order for the libraries to be usable.

This is something that somewhat plages the Rust ecosystem, since the .rs tld exists. Thankfully, every single library in existence has its docs built automatically and sent to docs.rs, so you don&#x27;t even need those lib&#x27;s websites.They have a use when you follow the git tip to have docs from HEAD and not a release.

There&#x27;s unfortunately a lot of SEO spam dressed as docs in the python world. Usually all you need is in readthedocs.

I almost feel like it&#x27;s a python specific issue. No other eco system have I&#x27;ve had to scour so many random almost identical looking websites to learn the libraries I use.Almost like spending lots of time making a documentation page is a rite of passage for python devs.Of course, some of it may be that I didn&#x27;t need it as much for when I did java dev. Typing+docstrings help much more in the IDE than for python code.Also, it&#x27;s good that most python devs want to document their code. I&#x27;d just wish they&#x27;d do a better job, and not be so inspired by the crappy official docs.

Often the domain hosts the email for the package. Control the domain and you can control the package. Control the package and you can ransomware or cryptomime quite a few computers as a criminal. Heck maybe if you are Russian you just wipe any computer with a non-russian IP.

&gt; Weirdly, when I&#x27;m evaluating open source libraries having their own domain name rather than a site on GitHub pages or ReadTheDocs is a very slight mark against them in my book - because of exactly this.&gt; If a project has its own domain name, it has better be VERY confident that it will be renewing that domain for decades to come.The requests documentation is hosted on ReadTheDocs already. Also you can generate the docs yourself:<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;psf&#x2F;requests&#x2F;blob&#x2F;main&#x2F;docs&#x2F;Makefile#L25" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;psf&#x2F;requests&#x2F;blob&#x2F;main&#x2F;docs&#x2F;Makefile#L25</a>I find your focus on the domain kind of odd to be honest. I&#x27;m not really sure why it&#x27;s so important.

So this is interesting to me in the context of having just released a Python framework (<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.tetraframework.com" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.tetraframework.com</a>) and choosing to self host the docs.It&#x27;s something that I put a lot of thought into, but I decided to go that route for two reasons:- I want to be able to embed into the docs working examples, as you often see in JavaScript front end framework docs. I could have done this by just embedding a Glitch for each example but I also intend the whole docs site to be a good example of how to build with the framework (once I flesh out routing). 15 years ago when I first found Django, it&#x27;s site was the perfect reference to look at too see how to use Django in a larger context. (Maybe there is a correlation between proximity of a tool to the front end and self hosted docs)- There is also a marketing aspect to it, I was to present Tetra as something significant. Show how much thought and work is going into it.However your comment (and the situation with Requests) has been a nudge, I will be sure to mirror Tetras docs on to a docs hosting site too.

I like it when it&#x27;s hosted on the git repo host (e.g. GitHub Pages), which accomplishes that, but my main&#x2F;usual reason is that it makes it so much easier to find the source&#x2F;issue tracker&#x2F;etc.Otherwise I have to hunt around without knowing whether the link&#x27;s going to be called &#x27;repository&#x27;, &#x27;fork me on GitHub&#x27; (I don&#x27;t want to fork you, I just want to see you!), &#x27;homepage&#x27;, or what.

Weirdly, when I&#x27;m evaluating open source libraries having their own domain name rather than a site on GitHub pages or ReadTheDocs is a very slight mark against them in my book - because of exactly this.If a project has its own domain name, it has better be VERY confident that it will be renewing that domain for decades to come. If it&#x27;s a relatively concise library I would much rather it use a trustworthy service to host its documentation as opposed to some custom domain that&#x27;s likely to expire and break links in the future.(My own open source projects now mostly hang off my <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;datasette.io&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;datasette.io&#x2F;</a> domain, but I was a few years into that project before I committed to a domain name that I plan to renew for the rest of my life.)

After that debacle with pipenv and the misleading promotion of it, I&#x27;m not surprised he&#x27;s taking time out from Python dev (or perhaps Python is taking time out from him).

Much of this applies perfectly to CPython and many of the CPython core &quot;developers&quot;. I do not recall that the author of this pamphlet has ever done much, but he tends to appear whenever someone is canceled.

Yeah he&#x27;s only sort of connected to the project now:&quot;I think a lot of people don&#x27;t realize how little Reitz actually has to do with Requests development. For many years now, actual maintenance has been done almost exclusively by other volunteers. If you look at the maintainers list on PyPI, you&#x27;ll see he doesn&#x27;t have PyPI rights to his own project, because he kept breaking stuff, so the real maintainers insisted on revoking his access&quot;From <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;vorpus.org&#x2F;blog&#x2F;why-im-not-collaborating-with-kenneth-reitz&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;vorpus.org&#x2F;blog&#x2F;why-im-not-collaborating-with-kennet...</a>

He sort of &#x27;rage quit&#x27; well before that, handed everything off to the first to request it. Not great, but his prerogative, something to bare in mind relying on OSS from random individuals I suppose, even if it is something as major as requests (and someone as major as Reitz) et al.

According to Kenneth’s Twitter feed, be became a dad about about 50 days ago.I imagine he’s busy.

&quot;The standard library is where packages go to die.&quot;Requests requires the ability to make regular updates to maintain security. It&#x27;s unsuitable for inclusion in the standard library.

Given how popular it is, would it be a bad idea to include it in the standard library?

From <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;psf&#x2F;requests&#x2F;issues&#x2F;6140" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;psf&#x2F;requests&#x2F;issues&#x2F;6140</a>:&gt; The domain is still owned by Kenneth and the maintainers haven&#x27;t had access to it in quite some time.and:&gt; For those looking for alternatives, <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;requests.readthedocs.io&#x2F;en&#x2F;latest&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;requests.readthedocs.io&#x2F;en&#x2F;latest&#x2F;</a> should be returning docs correctly again. This has been the &quot;official&quot; location for some time as we lack controls on the python-requests domains. I&#x27;ll update again once we receive a response from Kenneth.

Funny thing is they chose the exact same domain structure, which reminds me that httpx may eventually end up like this ridiculous requests situation...

Yes this. I feel people avoid it because of inertia, but I&#x27;ve started using it by default now, and typically only adds a few lines of code. (old) batteries included etc etcThere&#x27;s also <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;docs.python.org&#x2F;3&#x2F;library&#x2F;http.client.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;docs.python.org&#x2F;3&#x2F;library&#x2F;http.client.html</a>, which ironically refers people over to requests anyway...

Yes! <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;gabrielsroka&#x2F;r" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;gabrielsroka&#x2F;r</a>

Depending on your needs, urllib might be good enough.

requests has laid all the groundwork for httpx to be able to even exist.the new library is a natural evolution that for example features full async support, which I don&#x27;t think will ever be added to requests.

This is a bit ridiculous (not the library, the situation)Why do we have to reinvent the wheel every couple of years?As much as this lib looks fine, I&#x27;d be sticking with requests if it still keeps getting fixesAnd of course the beauty of open source is that I can fork the project and add a fix if I need.It&#x27;s great that HttpX uses the same API apparently, but you know, there&#x27;s always some rough corner somewhere and of course your project hits it. Of course.Software maintenance is already annoying without having to update libraries every now and then. Now having to replace a library is even more problematic

Too bad you&#x27;ll still end up with requests as part of some other package&#x27;s dependency most of the time.

Yep! I&#x27;ve been using httpx for all my projects and several are in production. It&#x27;s a great replacement

Recommended alternative: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.python-httpx.org" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.python-httpx.org</a>

Backstory on the above: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;celery&#x2F;celeryproject&#x2F;issues&#x2F;52" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;celery&#x2F;celeryproject&#x2F;issues&#x2F;52</a>, <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;auvipy&#x2F;status&#x2F;1506560289117933568" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;auvipy&#x2F;status&#x2F;1506560289117933568</a>, <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;auvipy&#x2F;status&#x2F;1507254618954207235" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;auvipy&#x2F;status&#x2F;1507254618954207235</a>

Yeah, celery docs were down for weeks earlier this year and now has a new domain.

i had some problem with celery a few days ago, this cant be coincidence. Thanks for the info.

This was recently an issue with the celery docs site too. When the primary authors step away from the code the infra isn’t always handed over.

To clarify, it&#x27;s not expired, the registrar is asking Kenneth to verify his identity. We&#x27;re currently pending that before it&#x27;s available again.

What does it mean that the domain has expired?I tried to look it up on a domain purchasing website and it isn&#x27;t available for purchase, and according to namecheap it is still owned by the same owner since 2011.

The requests repository isn’t connected to Python-requests? Maybe take another look, haha.

Im curious how this is a valid issue for that repository, the repository seems to make no reference to that domain

GitHub issue: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;psf&#x2F;requests&#x2F;issues&#x2F;6140" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;psf&#x2F;requests&#x2F;issues&#x2F;6140</a>

This happened to the Celery project a while back. 
I was surprised most opensource projects arn&#x27;t using something like gitlab or hub pages for cheap hosting for docs.

Requests not being async is a pretty big remark against it in my book. I am still using it for testing and sync requests but moved to aiohttp mostly.

At least it&#x27;s open source. You can still install the library, read (and even vendor) the source code, and build the docs from that code. You just can&#x27;t visit the website.

Too bad, requests is a very popular and useful library.Yet, this is just one more example against reliying on third-party libraries for production purposes. Sometimes, urllib is enough.

I&#x27;ve recently launched a project (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;domainy.io" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;domainy.io</a>) which lets you monitor for domain names&#x27;s availability, expiration, purchased etc etc. It&#x27;s been interesting to see the type of domains that do get expired, though I haven&#x27;t had a chance to snap up some of them.

The domain for the Python Requests library is expired