python-can has a mailing list

[Brian Thorne]

As the project is getting more traction it is high time we had a mailing list.

I expect this will be very low traffic; useful for posting about releases, perhaps asking for reviewers with access to particular hardware, and discussions about development that don't belong in the issue tracker.

Brian

[Brian Thorne]

Might be jumping the gun a bit, but I created a twitter account for the project too.

https://twitter.com/pythoncan

[Mike Varas]

Can this mailing list also be used as a request for documentation?
I can't seem to find a Getting Started document.

This, this and this are a start, but in my opinion insufficient for people new to the library.

[Brian Thorne]

Hi Mike,

Yes this is definitely the place for such requests. Better beginner documentation is definitely something the project needs. Actually just better documentation over all!

What documentation were you looking for? What were you trying to do?

Cheers, Brian

[Mike Varas]

Hi Brian,

For starters, there's no explanation what the goal of this library is. Sure, there are sentences like 'python-can is a library for interacting with a controller area network' and 'This module provides controller area network support for Python.'. But all that tells me is:

• It's a library.
• For Python
• Interacts with CAN
  

Does it simulate CAN without requiring hardware? Is it a logic-analyzer specialized for CAN? Can I turn my machine into a CAN peripheral/gateway/ECU/etc. with this library?

What use-case led to the development of this library and does it currently provide a solution for this use-case? What is the minimum amount of hardware required to reproduce this?

Basically, you provide a great piece of software, give us some features and forget to tell it's intended purpose. How am I, speaking as an engineer with some CAN experience but new to this specific library, figure out whether I can use it as a tool? Is it capable of helping with troubleshooting faulty hardware? Is it capable of helping with the development of said hardware? I don't know what to expect.

And if you can't get me hooked, I won't turn into a contributing developer either.

Does this make it clear?

Cheers, Mike

[Brian Thorne]

Hey Mike,

I appreciate the feedback and call to action! Took me a couple of weeks to find a spare evening but I've tried to update the docs to sell the library a bit better. The readme is significantly simpler and the latest docs start with example use cases - take a look at http://python-can.readthedocs.io/en/latest/

New release should be out sometime in the next week or two.

Cheers,

Brian

[Keith Merrill]

I am starting to use Python-can I need some help. What is the best resource for newbies?

Keith

[Felix Divo]

The simplest would probably be to look at the examples (here: https://github.com/hardbyte/python-can/tree/develop/examples). The documentation can be found online, and you might start with looking at how a bus works: https://python-can.readthedocs.io/en/stable/bus.html#bus or have a look at the index: https://python-can.readthedocs.io/en/stable/index.html.

Felix