On Nov 6, 2010, at 12:33 AM, Steven D'Aprano wrote: > On Fri, 05 Nov 2010 23:21:11 -0400, Philip Semanchuk wrote: > >> Take the OP's question. How is one supposed to find out about bitwise >> operators in Python? AFAICT they're not mentioned in the tutorial, and >> neither are decorators, assert(), global, exec, the ternary if >> statement, etc. > > 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. It's not awful, but it's dense and unfriendly for those just starting out. > There are plenty of other resources available: learning Python > *starts* with the python.org tutorial (or some equivalent), it doesn't > end there. Yes, I agree. That's what I said in my email too. One goes through the tutorial a few times and then...? There's not a formal document to turn to after that. There are plenty of resources -- books, mailing lists, etc. But they're 3rd party, unstructured, not maintained, etc. 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. bye Philip -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list