Skip to content

Docs: Let's create a "Common Issues & FAQ" document #2176

@ichard26

Description

@ichard26

Howdy!

The documentation reorganization effort is in the final stages (see GH-1759 and GH-2174 for details). During the planning stages of the reorganization, I planned for the creation of many more docs. This is one of them.

Summary

Create a document that provides answers to common issues users run into AND to questions often asked. The answers can be self-contained or delegate more detail to another part of the documentation. The requirement for something to join the document is that 1) it would commonly trafficked (or is annoying enough to be worth including) and 2) is user-facing (the contributing section can get its own FAQ or whatever if needed).

Why

During my time as a triager I've noticed issues being opened for the same thing over and over again (e.g. the infamous E203 flake8 lint rule). I've also just noticed user support questions that have a such simple answer that they should be written down somewhere easy to find (e.g. "What's Black's Python support status (especially for Python 2)?").

The main goal is to 1) make it easier for users to quickly get answers to their qualms, and 2) reduce the amount of issue traffic by avoiding duplicates / easily solvable questions / issues.

Contents

  • Flake8's infamous E203 (including W503 might not be a bad idea as well)
  • Our support policy for Python 2
  • "Why is X file not being formatted?" - points to the file collection and discovery docs (probably due to a .gitignore file)
  • "Is Black safe to use?" - points to our beta status details and AST policy
  • Something about the invalid code error you face with an unterminated fmt: off (Invalid code after indented # fmt: off #569) - not sure how word this one tho
  • "Why is this collection not being collapsed" - points to the magic trailing comma docs
  • "How stable is Black's style?"
  • "Does Black have an API?"

Discussion goals

What else should we include? I'm sure I'm missing a bunch, especially as a newer maintainer of the project :) Also is there anything in my list that we shouldn't include? Finally, what should we write for each Q?

Metadata

Metadata

Assignees

No one assigned

    Labels

    T: documentationImprovements to the docs (e.g. new topic, correction, etc)

    Projects

    No projects

    Milestone

    No milestone

    Relationships

    None yet

    Development

    No branches or pull requests

    Issue actions