Silly newbie question - Carrot character (^)

[Nobody]

On Fri, 05 Nov 2010 22:51:10 +0000, Seebs wrote:

>> IMHO, the lack of a reference manual for the language itself is a major
>> hole in Python's documentation.
> 
> I'm a bit lost here.  Could you highlight some of the differences between
> "a reference manual for the language itself" and "something written for
> language lawyers"?

A reference manual tells you how to use the language. A specification
tells you how to implement it.

It's possible to /deduce/ how to use the language from a specification,
but it could take significant time and effort.

A specification is typically designed to be read in its entirety, and may
yield little usable information until you've read a substantial portion of
it.

A reference manual is structured such that you can easily locate the
portion which is necessary for the task immediately to hand, and only
need to read that portion.

OTOH, a tutorial typically isn't exhaustive. And even if it is, the
information related to a topic may be scattered throughout multiple
sections, making it hard to find a specific piece of information.

E.g. the syntax of expressions adheres rather rigidly to the grammar used
for parsing, which is fine for a specification, but not how a reference
manual would normally be written.