Many libraries build a GObject introspection repository (*.gir) these days which allows the library to be used from many scripting (Python, JavaScript, Perl, etc.) and other (e. g. Vala) languages without the need for manually writing bindings for each of those.

One issue that I hear surprisingly often is “there is zero documentation for those bindings”. Tools for building documentation out of a .gir have existed for a long time already, just far too many people seem to not know about them.

For example, to build Yelp XML documentation out of the libnotify bindings for Python:

  $ g-ir-doc-tool --language=Python -o /tmp/notify-doc /usr/share/gir-1.0/Notify-0.7.gir

Then you can call yelp /tmp/notify-doc to browse the documentation. You can of course also use the standard Mallard tools to convert them to HTML for sticking them on a website:

  $ cd /tmp/notify-doc
  $ yelp-build html .

Admittedly they are far from pretty, and there are still lots of refinements that should be done for the documentation itself (like adding language specific examples) and also for the generated result (prettification, dynamic search, and what not), but it’s certainly far from “nothign”, and a good start.

If you are interested in working on this, please show up in #introspection or discuss it on bugzilla, desktop-devel-list@, or the library specific lists/bug trackers.