[Python-Dev] FP vs. tutorial

[Tim Peters]

I struggled with a way to do a better job of explaining this stuff last
night.  As I see others already said, the Tutorial is not aimed at script
kiddies, or non-programmers, or even programming newbies, but at programmers
who are simply new to Python.  So everything I put in the tutorial was either
jarringly out of place, or inadequate to address the audience you (Michel)
have in mind.  But I agree that's an important audience, and I spend a fair
chunk of my life now anyway eexplaining this stuff over & over to those who
think computing a ratio of two integers is akin to solving fourth order
differential equations <wink>.

In the end I decided to write a Tutorial Appendix in a much gentler style.
It doesn't really fit with the rest of the Tutorial, but then that's *why*
it's an Appendix.  The patch is here:

    http://sourceforge.net/tracker/index.php?func=detail&
        aid=426208&group_id=5470&atid=305470

I also changed the tutorial fp examples so they have an excellent chance of
displaying the same strings across all platforms, and even if Python 10K
defaults to decimal floating-point someday (perhaps in the year 10000, as its
name suggests).