# HG changeset patch
# User Atul Varma <varmaa@toolness.com>
# Date 1212706024 25200
# Node ID f8aa8d0494eda74e4a9afef1ed2a262d5c41cf8c
# Parent  758a15a83be88c7ab53ef69b9c925c21785e6a5a
More stuff...

diff -r 758a15a83be8 -r f8aa8d0494ed PythonForJsProgrammers.txt
--- a/PythonForJsProgrammers.txt	Thu Jun 05 15:24:58 2008 -0700
+++ b/PythonForJsProgrammers.txt	Thu Jun 05 15:47:04 2008 -0700
@@ -85,8 +85,9 @@
 
 Python, when executed with no parameters, just presents an interactive
 interpreter.  It's similar to the SpiderMonkey shell and xpcshell if
-you're familiar with those.  The code examples in this tutorial will
-be displayed as though they're being executed in it, like so:
+you're familiar with those.  All following code examples in this
+tutorial will be displayed as though they're being executed in it,
+like so:
 
     >>> 1 + 2
     3
@@ -97,8 +98,25 @@
     ...       "statement that spans multiple lines."
     This is a long statement that spans multiple lines.
 
-The shell is also a useful way to explore Python's functionality; feel
-free to just use it as a desk calculator to get used to it.
+One built-in function in particular that helps explore things in the
+built-in shell is ``dir()``, which returns a list of all the
+attributes attached to an object:
+
+    >>> dir("a string")
+    ['__add__', '__class__', '__contains__', '__delattr__', '__doc__', '__eq__', '__ge__', '__getattribute__', '__getitem__', '__getnewargs__', '__getslice__', '__gt__', '__hash__', '__init__', '__le__', '__len__', '__lt__', '__mod__', '__mul__', '__ne__', '__new__', '__reduce__', '__reduce_ex__', '__repr__', '__rmod__', '__rmul__', '__setattr__', '__str__', 'capitalize', 'center', 'count', 'decode', 'encode', 'endswith', 'expandtabs', 'find', 'index', 'isalnum', 'isalpha', 'isdigit', 'islower', 'isspace', 'istitle', 'isupper', 'join', 'ljust', 'lower', 'lstrip', 'partition', 'replace', 'rfind', 'rindex', 'rjust', 'rpartition', 'rsplit', 'rstrip', 'split', 'splitlines', 'startswith', 'strip', 'swapcase', 'title', 'translate', 'upper', 'zfill']
+
+If there's a function you're interested in learning more about, you
+can look at the built-in documentation metadata associated with the
+object by querying its ``__doc__`` attribute:
+
+    >>> print "a string".join.__doc__
+    S.join(sequence) -> string
+    <BLANKLINE>
+    Return a string which is the concatenation of the strings in the
+    sequence.  The separator between elements is S.
+
+This makes it very easy and fun to explore the language and its
+environs.
 
 Expressions
 ===========
@@ -157,7 +175,14 @@
     ...
     AttributeError: 'str' object has no attribute 'foo'
 
-Python does have an analog to JavaScript's ``null``: it's called
+In most cases, this is for the best, as it makes debugging easier.  If
+you really need to find out if an object has a particular attribute,
+however, you can use the ``hasattr()`` function:
+
+    >>> hasattr("a string", "foo")
+    False
+
+Python also has an analog to JavaScript's ``null``: it's called
 ``None``.
 
 Functions
@@ -294,7 +319,7 @@
 Dictionaries
 ============
 
-Dictionaries are a lot like Object literals in JavaScript:
+Dictionaries are a bit like Object literals in JavaScript:
 
     >>> d = {"foo" : 1, "bar" : 2}
     >>> d["foo"]
@@ -353,6 +378,23 @@
     >>> doThing()
     6
 
+Exceptions
+==========
+
+They work as expected, and there's a number of `built-in ones`_.
+
+Python prefers the term ``raise`` to JavaScript's ``throw``, and
+``except`` to JavaScript's ``catch``.  Given this, the following
+code is fairly self-explanatory:
+
+    >>> try:
+    ...     raise Exception("Oof")
+    ... except Exception, e:
+    ...     print "Caught an exception: %s" % e
+    Caught an exception: Oof
+
+.. _`built-in ones`: http://docs.python.org/lib/module-exceptions.html
+
 Coding Style
 ============