Ask HN: Which programming language has the best documentation?

Re:Ask HN: Which programming language has the best documenta... by spacemanaki on Wednesday August 10, 2011 @09:12PM (#2870918)

The Java standard library docs are very good, and the language spec is quite clear and precisely defined.

Another language with brutally specific docs is Common Lisp. Even though I have really only dabbled in it, the Hyperspec is really pretty impressive.

At least one common factor between them is Guy Steele, I don't think that's a coincidence.

Edited to add that I'm pretty sure my comment was motivated by this comment by mahmud: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1661254

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Re:Ask HN: Which programming language has the best documenta... by colanderman on Wednesday August 10, 2011 @11:29PM (#2871226)

I remember reading that Guy Steele was specifically hired to the Java project for this reason. Wikipedia corroborates this: "In 1994, Steele joined Sun Microsystems and was invited by Bill Joy to become a member of the Java team after the language had been designed, since he had a track record of writing good specifications for existing languages."

He also documented ECMAScript 1, which I've found to be pleasurably precise.

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