README

This is Python, an extensible interpreted programming language that
combines remarkable power with very clear syntax.

This is version 0.9 (the first beta release), patchlevel 1.

Python can be used instead of shell, Awk or Perl scripts, to write
prototypes of real applications, or as an extension language of large
systems, you name it. There are built-in modules that interface to
the operating system and to various window systems: X11, the Mac
window system (you need STDWIN for these two), and Silicon Graphics'
GL library. It runs on most modern versions of UNIX, on the Mac, and
I wouldn't be surprised if it ran on MS-DOS unchanged. I developed it
mostly on an SGI IRIS workstation (using IRIX 3.1 and 3.2) and on the
Mac, but have tested it also on SunOS (4.1) and BSD 4.3 (tahoe).

Building and installing Python is easy (but do read the Makefile).
A UNIX style manual page and extensive documentation (in LaTeX format)
are provided. (In the beta release, the documentation is still under
development.)

Please try it out and send me your comments (on anything -- the
language design, implementation, portability, installation,
documentation) and the modules you wrote for it, to make the first
real release better. If you needed to hack the source to get it to
py_compile and run on a particular machine, send me the fixes -- I'll try
to incorporate them into the next patch. If you can't get it to work
at all, send me a *detailed* description of the problem and I may look
into it.

If you want to profit of the X11 or Mac window interface, you'll need
STDWIN. This is a portable window system interface by the same
author. The versions of STDWIN floating around on some archives are
not sufficiently up-to-date for use with Python. I will distribute
the latest and greatest STDWIN version at about the same time as Python.

I am the author of Python:

       Guido van Rossum
       CWI, dept. CST
       Kruislaan 413
       1098 SJ  Amsterdam
       The Netherlands

       E-mail: gu...@cwi.nl

The Python source is copyrighted, but you can freely use and copy it
as long as you don't change or remove the copyright:

/*
 * Copyright 1991 by Stichting Mathematisch Centrum
 * See `LICENCE' for more information.