On Tue, 2006-11-07 at 08:10 +0200, Hendrik van Rooyen wrote: > "John Machin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > 8<--------------------------------------- > > > I strongly suggest that you read the docs *FIRST*, and don't "tinker" > > at all. > >
> This is *good* advice - its unlikely to be followed though, as the OP is > prolly > just like most of us - you unpack the stuff out of the box and start > assembling > it, and only towards the end, when it wont fit together, do you read the > manual > to see where you went wrong... I fall right into this camp(fire). I'm always amazed and awed at people who actually read the docs *thoroughly* before starting. I know some people do but frankly, unless it's a step-by-step tutorial, I rarely read the docs beyond getting a basic understanding of what something does before I start "tinkering". I've always been a firm believer in the Chinese proverb: I hear and I forget I see and I remember I do and I understand Of course, I usually just skip straight to the third step and try to work backwards as needed. This usually works pretty well but when it doesn't it fails horribly. Unfortunately (for me), working from step one rarely works at all, so that's the boat I'm stuck in. I've always been a bit miffed at the RTFM crowd (and somewhat jealous, I admit). I *do* RTFM, but as often as not the fine manual confuses as much as clarifies. I'm not convinced this is the result of poor documentation so much as that I personally have a different mental approach to problem-solving than the others who find documentation universally enlightening. I also suspect that I'm not alone in my approach and that the RTFM crowd is more than a little close-minded about how others might think about and approach solving problems and understanding concepts. Also, much documentation (including the Python docs) tends to be reference-manual style. This is great if you *already* understand the problem and just need details, but does about as much for *understanding* as a dictionary does for learning a language. When I'm perusing the Python reference manual, I usually find that 10 lines of example code are worth 1000 lines of function descriptions and cross-references. Just my $0.02. Regards, Cliff -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list