Silly newbie question - Carrot character (^)

D'Arcy J.M. Cain darcy at druid.net
Sat Nov 6 10:45:02 EDT 2010


On Sat, 6 Nov 2010 10:22:47 -0400
Philip Semanchuk <philip at semanchuk.com> wrote:
> > The tutorial isn't meant as an exhaustive lesson on every single Python 
> > feature.
> 
> I agree, and I don't expect otherwise. My point was that if the
> tutorial doesn't mention a feature, the only other place to learn about
> it (on python.org) is the language ref. Some people might think the
> language ref is a fine place to direct newcomers to Python. I don't.

I don't think that anyone was suggesting the reference as the first
place to send newcomers.  You send them there when they need something
beyond the basics.  I think the only issue here is that operators are
pretty basic and that specific thing is missing in the tutorial.  It
would be a mistake to write a whole new document because the tutorial
is missing one thing.  Better would be to propose an operators section.

> I realize that the Python Foundation doesn't have infinite resources
> to work with, so maybe they'd love to create & maintain a more readable
> language reference if they had time/money/people. I don't hear anyone
> talk about it, though. 

Lots of people talk.  Action, not so much.  How about you?  Are you
ready to start writing a new reference manual?  How about just that one
section on operators that's missing from the tutorial.

Remember, Python is "we," not "they."

-- 
D'Arcy J.M. Cain <darcy at druid.net>         |  Democracy is three wolves
http://www.druid.net/darcy/                |  and a sheep voting on
+1 416 425 1212     (DoD#0082)    (eNTP)   |  what's for dinner.



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