some not so random reflections of a "Python newbie" voyeur

[tim muddletin]

alex at magenta.com (Alex Martelli) wrote:
>Books matter -- a lot.  I just got the "Top 10 of
>1999" list of computer books

Oh, one more thing that may be of general interest to readers
(and perhaps to writers too!)... the extent of which might not 
have been realised before (it was a bit of a surprise to me---the 
magnitude), but the python tutorials out there are *really* popular.

As Vaults of Parnassus gate keeper i've been watching with
interest what items are viewed the most... and by far the
tutorials as a class are the most regularly requested resource
from the database... so a tip of the hat to all the great
tutorial writers out there! Your work seems extremely appreciated.

(Though one may also consider the stats skewed in that a lot of
the long time afficionados already know where everything is---
and even seem to be able to spit out complete URLs to the most
obscure resources in bot-like fashion (not mentioning any names,
or even any single letters occuring in the english alphabet 
between E and G!) from their encyclopaedic brains, before lesser 
mere mortals can even think of pronouncing "VoP"---so one may 
theorise that a higher proportion of newbies are searching/browsing 
the database---to some extent perhaps).

The most popular of all (and has been consistantly so since day
one---again surprising to me) is the venerable "Python / Perl Phrase
Book" page. People can't seem to get enough of this site. Must be
a lot of Perl defectors looking for a helping hand (certainly not the
other way around). Just a hint.. maybe someone (like Jak) should do
some more updates and have it published!

...