Start learning 2.6 or wait for 3.0?

[Terry Reedy]

Alan Biddle wrote:
> I am planning on learning Python, primarily for my own interest,
> rather than any immediate need.  I am wondering whether I would be
> wasting my time to start with the latest 2.6 version which has a lot
> of good instructional material, or wait a bit for version 3.0?

If you want to use 3rd party modules, I would today consider 2.5.2 (soon 
to be 2.5.3) rather that 2.6.  In either case, also include object or 
other built-in class in the list of base classes for class statements, 
and always start with 'from __future__ import division'.

If you are not interested in 3rd party modules, I would consider 3.0 
(which will be little different from the current candidate).  The main 
change relevant to a beginner is the deletion of duplicate or obsolete 
features.