Interactive documentation: GSoC ancillary tasks and new SPEC

[agriyakhetarpal]

Originally posted by @agriyakhetarpal in the #documentation channel in the Slack workspace, and moved here after a conversation with @MatthewMiddlehurst. The comments below contain a transcript of the conversation, and the A and M initials used to highlight this.

A: Hi there! I came across the fact that aeon is hosting a GSoC project on improving the interactivity of its documentation – and I wanted to ask if y'all are also considering the aspect of "executable documentation" (or have done so in the past)? Context: we've been up to writing a SPEC in the Scientific Python ecosystem that aims to describe how to implement in-browser interactive documentation using WebAssembly so that API references and/or notebooks can be executed in the browser, and it is now live as a PR for public review. Please feel free to read it – perhaps it could fit what y'all are looking for as a corollary aside from the primary goals of the project, or as a stretch goal for to-be selected contributor if they might be keen on it, or could be just interesting to see in general for the maintainers! I'd be happy to answer any questions y'all might have 😄

"SPEC 14 — Interactive Documentation" - SPECs / Ideas - Scientific Python - Scientific User-Developers at discuss.scientific-python.org

M: Unfortunately I don't think it will be part of a GSoC project this year, but very interesting and thanks for linking. Maybe worth a general issue as it does look like a good addition if it is feasible and can be cleanly integrated.

A: I checked the dependencies and this should be feasible with some work, all of which is detailed in the SPEC – it also includes examples of how to do this later as a part of the document and has links to PRs for other projects, I hope that should help!
These SPECs are usually written and maintained within the "Core Projects" per se, and we've been hoping to expand the scope of discussion a little more over the past few months – so paving the way for greater feedback on this occasion from the aeon team and external libraries would especially be useful and worth it.

[agriyakhetarpal]

Given that the interactive documentation project did not make it to this year's GSoC programme for aeon, I imagine that it could be in contention for next year's lineup – where this can be included as something for a potential contributor to look at. Alternatively, it might pique the interest of anyone who's interested in contributing to aeon outside of a paid volunteership programme like GSoC, or other core developers and maintainers.

[MatthewMiddlehurst]

Interested in exploring it at the very least, though do not really have the capacity to do it myself currently. As mentioned above would be a good inclusion in a project next year or if anyone would like to take it on themselves I am happy to give some input.