Adam> Having a large and detailed language specification, although an Adam> admirable ideal, is a waste of time when the target audience is Adam> perhaps a few dozen people.
Just because that audience is small doesn't mean they are unimportant. There are currently four actively maintained/developed implementations of Python. A common language reference manual is important for them, and indirectly for the people who use the four implementations. I'm not trying to discount the value of a good Users Guide. Skip -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list