People who’s native language is Perl might find the Perl/Python phrasebook handy. When talking to the Python interpreter, some try hand gestures, typing slowly or using ALL CAPS, but these seldom work and can often annoy or even alarm the interpreter. This phrasebook covers the most common things you need to say to a simple Python system. For example, if you wanted to tell it to read your file as a list of lines, there’s a phrasebook entry that that shows just how to say it.

my $filename = “cooktest1.1-1″;
open my $f, $filename or die “can’t open $filename: $!\n”;
@lines = <$f>;

–

filename = “cooktest1.1-1″
f = open(filename) # Python has exceptions with somewhat-easy to
# understand error messages. If the file could
# not be opened, it would say “No such file or
# directory: %filename” which is as
# understandable as “can’t open $filename:”
lines = f.readlines()

Many of the entries also contain helpful facts and advice about the customs and social norms of native Python speakers. Not only can this keep you out of trouble, it will deepen your understanding of the colorful and sometimes quaint Python speakers. I hope that the pocket travel version of the phrasebook, suitable for downloading onto an ipod, will be out soon.