Appendix A. A guide to Python’s documentation
The best and most current reference for Python is the documentation that comes with Python itself. With that in mind, it’s more useful to explore the ways you can access that documentation than to print pages of edited documentation.
The standard bundle of documentation has several sections, including instructions on documenting, distributing, installing, and extending Python on various platforms, and is the logical starting point when you’re looking for answers to questions about Python. The two main areas of the Python documentation that are likely to be the most useful are the Library Reference and the Language Reference. The Library Reference is absolutely essential because it has explanations of both the built-in data types and every module included with Python. The Language Reference is the explanation of how the core of Python works, and it contains the official word on the core of the language, explaining the workings of data types, statements, and so on. The “What’s New” section is also worth reading, particularly when a new version of Python is released, because it summarizes all of the changes in the new version.