Object introspection with `object_name?` and `name??`

What I miss from Jupyter/IPython notebooks is an ability to lookup documentation with ? and ?? commands. Quoting the manual

One can access docstrings, function definition prototypes, source code, source files and other details of any object accessible to the interpreter with a single keystroke ( ? , and using ?? provides additional detail).

This is clarified further in the tutorial

Typing object_name? will print all sorts of details about any object, including docstrings, function definition lines (for call arguments) and constructor details for classes.

For Observable notebooks mported JS code is likely to miss docstrings, which can be fixed by source maps. Help text might be better seen in scrollable popup rather than in cell body. Am I right that this help lookup feature is not implemented in Observable?

How do people find out what a certain function does, like, for example, ubiquitous svg.node()?

I always have various MDN or d3-something tabs opened.

1 Like