Academic citation for Python

[Fredrik Lundh]

Ross Lazarus wrote:

> How should the Python language be cited in an academic publication?
>
> For example, in
> http://bioinformatics.oupjournals.org/cgi/reprint/17/8/756.pdf the
> author mentions http://www.python.org in the text rather than formally
> citing the primary source - or is that the appropriate primary source
> and recommended attribution?
>
> I found "Copyright 1991-1995 by Stichting Mathematisch Centrum,
> Amsterdam, The Netherlands" at http://www.python.org/doc/Copyright.html,
> but that doesn't seem as complete or helpful as I'd like for a refereed
> journal.

the original CWI reports are often used as references, e.g:

    "G. van Rossum, Python tutorial, Technical Report CS-R9526,
    Centrum voor Wiskunde en Informatica (CWI), Amsterdam, May
    1995."

also see:

    http://www.python.org/~guido/Publications.html

fwiw, citeseer doesn't appear to have any citations for CNRI
or PythonLabs editions of those documents.  I'm not sure that
should stop you from citing them, though...

</F>