[Tutor] changes in Python 2.2

[Rob Andrews]

You probably don't need to worry about language changes, really. The 
fundamental skills you pick up as you learn this stuff will not all flip 
over on you overnight by any far stretch of the imagination. And as new 
things do come up, they are phased in as older features are phased out. 
This process is glacial compared with the speed at which you can learn 
the language.

I speak as a student who has learned from experience, not as an expert 
or academic.

Rob Andrews
http://uselesspython.com

Thomas Rivas wrote:

> Hi folks--
> 
> Trying to learn Python on top of Java and a few other languages has been to 
> say the least a breath of fresh whilespace--if you'll pardon the mixed 
> metaphor; I love the simplicity of Python's orthography -- I hate braces-- 
> and its readeability.
> 
> But now having read A.M Kuchling's excellent "What's New in Python 2.2", a 
> few of the PEPs like 252, 253  that deal with new type of class and those 
> dealing with the new iterators and generators --PEPs 234 and 255, Python is 
> looking to me more and more like --well--,  another language.
> 
> My question is as a newbie how concerned should I be about what seem to me to 
> be major additions/ complexity to the language?  Or are these best seen as 
> evolutionary changes that have been brewing and finally risen to the top?  I 
> can certainly understand the impetus for class/type unifiication but at last 
> count at least 4 new words with special meaning [object, iter(), tp-iter, 
> StopIteration, yield, and generator] have been added. Then yesterday I came 
> across an article at www.informIT.com/deitel on Properties. Part of my 
> problem might be just I don't know how much to try to absorb  as a newbie to 
> programming; after all Kuching's article doesn't strike me as aimed at a 
> newbie. And I haven't seen much mentioned about all these changes on this 
> mailing list. Now I certainly won't be implementing any Python subclasses in 
> C for a long time to come, but I sure want to use the new iterators on 
> dictionaries and such!
> 
> Tom Rivas
> 
> 
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