some questions unanswered - new programmer ...

[Skip Montanaro]

    Lee> What is this 'help'?

    Lee> I can do:
    Lee> print dir.__doc__

    Lee> but for
    Lee> help('dir')
    Lee> I get:

    Lee> NameError ...

Try

    from pydoc import help
    help(pydoc)

I have this in my PYTHONSTARTUP file.  Pydoc is pretty damn cool.

-- 
Skip Montanaro (skip at pobox.com)
http://www.mojam.com/
http://www.musi-cal.com/