Thanks for the replies, everyone. As is usual when reading comp.lang.python, I got some invaluable exposure to new ideas (multiple dispatching in particular seems to fill a gap I've felt in OO programming in the past.)
I'm starting to think this newsgroup is in its own right an excellent reason to get into Python - the fact its an awesome language is just an added bouns ;-) -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
