I was initally annoyed that "Dive into Python" has the UserDict, but it was so easy to discover it was deprecated http://docs.python.org/lib/module-UserDict.html (althought the term 'deprecated' is not specifically used), that anyone on the ball (the OP seemed to know) would not based their next big project on UserDict.
I agree that Python has so many good concepts, and improvements with each new version, that something in a course will be outdated. I can concur that knowing Python made it much easier to go back to C++ and Java and understand the OO. My tip for an book on Python with only the latest information, nothing beats the Python Pocket Reference, 3rd edition, (O'Reilly) which is updated for 2.4 and seems to clearly label any deprecated features. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
