open is not obsolete (was Re: understanding self

[Tony Meyer]

[Jeff Shannon]
> But wait -- open() is an obsolete built-in function for
> opening a file.

[Ville Vainio]
> I'll just like to point out that open() is in no way 
> obsolete, even if it's aliased to "file".

FWIW, there's discussion about this very thing at the moment on python-dev.
There is some confusion there about whether file() is prefered to open() or
not.  It seems that many people think it is, and the current documentation
gives that idea, but Guido definitely does not feel that way, and so open()
is still the way to go (and the documentation will probably change to
reflect that).

=Tony Meyer