[Tutor] how obsolete is 2.2, and a pickle question

[c smith]

I found a book at the local library that covers python but it's 2.2.
I already have been using 2.7 for basic stuff and would like to know if it's
worth my time to read this book.
Are there any glaring differences that would be easy to point out, or is it
too convoluted?
Also, am I correct in thinking that 3.0 will always be called 3.0 but will
change over time and will always include experimental features, while 2.x
will gradually increase the 'x' and the highest 'x' will indicate the most
current, stable release?

oh, and a question on 'pickle':
can pickle deserialize things that were not serialized by python?
can it convert data into a python data type regardless of it was originally
a 'c array' or something else that python doesn't support?
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