[rovr138]

In the case of python, it's all built-in. People just don't know their tools.

  $ python
  Python 3.13.2 (main, Mar  6 2025, 08:26:01) [Clang 15.0.0 (clang-1500.3.9.4)] on darwin
  Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
  >>> import os
  >>> help(os)

Same thing happens with so many other things.

[thunky]

Not so great if you don't know the import or it's not intuitive (pathlib, shutil).

[rovr138]

You can search in module names and summaries,

    $ python
    Python 3.13.2 (main, Mar  6 2025, 08:26:01) [Clang 15.0.0 (clang-1500.3.9.4)] on darwin
    Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
    >>> help()
    Welcome to Python 3.13's help utility! If this is your first time using
    Python, you should definitely check out the tutorial at
    https://docs.python.org/3.13/tutorial/.
    
    Enter the name of any module, keyword, or topic to get help on writing
    Python programs and using Python modules.  To get a list of available
    modules, keywords, symbols, or topics, enter "modules", "keywords",
    "symbols", or "topics".
    
    Each module also comes with a one-line summary of what it does; to list
    the modules whose name or summary contain a given string such as "spam",
    enter "modules spam".
    
    To quit this help utility and return to the interpreter,
    enter "q", "quit" or "exit".
    
    help> modules files
    
    Here is a list of modules whose name or summary contains 'files'.
    If there are any, enter a module name to get more help.
    
    compileall - Module/script to byte-compile all .py files to .pyc files.
    filecmp - Utilities for comparing files and directories.
    fileinput - Helper class to quickly write a loop over all standard input files.
    gzip - Functions that read and write gzipped files.
    idlelib.grep - Grep dialog for Find in Files functionality.
    linecache - Cache lines from Python source files.
    netrc - An object-oriented interface to .netrc files.
    pathlib - Object-oriented filesystem paths.
    plistlib - plistlib.py -- a tool to generate and parse MacOSX .plist files.
    shutil - Utility functions for copying and archiving files and directory trees.
    tempfile - Temporary files.
    ...

I know there's search engines and there's use cases. I'm just trying to highlight that some people that work in a language day in and out, don't even know how to get their documentation. I just want people to know their tools better to ask smarter questions. It won't remove questions and that's fine. Just help me help you.

[thunky]

Thanks, I never knew about that modules search.