some questions unanswered - new programmer ...

[whats_really_hot]

Hello to the community of python programmers. I am a newbie in this field
and generally in programming, so I have chosen, after reading many posts
with proposals for languages for new programmers, python. So, now I am
reading "Learning Python" from O'REILLY and Mark Lutz & David Ascher, but
still I have some unanswered questions because of my stupidity or book's
incapability of explaining everything in an understanding manner. So, now I
begin a series of query-posts (which I hope that they won't be many, because
then I will be proved stupid enough to be flammed).

My first questions are:

1. The interactive command line is really a module with the name "__main__".
The command dir() also, return the names of the current namespace of the
respective active module. Among these (i.e. names) is always the "__name__"
name, which is the name of the current module. So, why when I type dir() in
the interactive command line "__name__" is returned in spite of  "__main__",
which is indeed the name of the current module, i.e. the interactive command
line?
2. What does the command "cat" do? I suspect that it begins the creation of
a new module, right?

Thanks for ur time and attention, because I admit that this is a huge post.
Anyway, I look forward to ur answers and prepare for my impending questions
in other posts.

That's for now.

Mail me: whats_really_hot at hotmail.com