Various modernization / py3 fixes

source/files/asciifiles.rst

@@ -478,6 +478,9 @@ rewrite the same code every time when it is already done!).  Instead just use `a
 
 .. admonition::  Exercise: scraping table data from the web
 
+   *Note: this exercise only works on Python 2 due to BeautifulSoup doing something
+   differently in Python 3.  Five cheers to the person who can fix this!*
+
    To do this exercise you must first install the `BeautifulSoup
    <http://www.crummy.com/software/BeautifulSoup/>`_ package which will parse
    HTML pages into nice data structures.  **QUIT** your IPython session and from the command line do::
@@ -586,7 +589,9 @@ Here is a more complicated example, that is actually useful::
 The resulting plot clearly shows the inverse first ionization potential effect.
 That means, that elements of a large FIP are enhanced in the corona.
 
-The second command ``np.genfromtxt`` is more versatile. It can fill missing values in a table, read column names, exclude some columns etc. Here is an example::
+The second command ``np.genfromtxt`` is more versatile. It can fill missing
+values in a table, read column names, exclude some columns etc. Here is an
+example (which only works in Python 2 as of Numpy 1.9)::
 
     d = StringIO('''
     #element abund error FIP

source/files/binaryfiles.rst

@@ -76,27 +76,11 @@ What can you do?
     1. Convert your collegue to use a different file format.
     2. Read that file in python.
 
-If you have a relatively recent version (at least 0.9) of ``scipy`` then this is a matter of two lines::
+With any relatively recent version ``scipy`` (at least 0.9) then this is a matter of two lines::
     
     from scipy.io.idl import readsav
     data = readsav('myidlfile.sav')
 
-If your scipy is older, then you need to install the package `idlsave <http://astrofrog.github.com/idlsave/>`_ yourself.
-(Go back to :doc:`../installation/packages` for details on package installation.)
-
-In a normal terminal (outside ``ipython``) do::
-    
-    pip install --upgrade idlsave
-    
-or, if you install packages as root user on your system::
-    
-    sudo pip install --upgrade idlsave
-
-Then import the package and read the data::
-    
-    import idlsave
-    data = idlsave.read('myidlfile.sav')
-    
 .. admonition::  Exercise: Where is your data?
 
     ``idlsave`` already prints some information on the screen while reading the file. Inspect the object ``data``, find out how you use it and plot

source/fitting/fitting.rst

@@ -15,6 +15,10 @@ Workshop goals are to use Sherpa to:
 
 - Fit the MAST 3C 273 data using the low-level API
 
+.. Note::
+
+    Sherpa currently does not support Python 3.
+
 **Agenda**
 
 .. toctree::

source/fitting/installation.rst

@@ -12,7 +12,7 @@ Sherpa Installation
 
 In order to follow along with the Sherpa examples presented in this
 workshop, you can use 
-`Sherpa in CIAO 4.4 <http://cxc.harvard.edu/ciao/download/>`_,
+`Sherpa in CIAO <http://cxc.harvard.edu/ciao/download/>`_,
 or install the stand-alone version described below.
 
 .. Note::

source/python/objects.rst

@@ -21,19 +21,10 @@ remember object methods!**
 ::
 
   In [17]: a.<TAB>
-  a.__add__           a.__ge__            a.__iter__          a.__repr__          a.append
-  a.__class__         a.__getattribute__  a.__le__            a.__reversed__      a.count
-  a.__contains__      a.__getitem__       a.__len__           a.__rmul__          a.extend
-  a.__delattr__       a.__getslice__      a.__lt__            a.__setattr__       a.index
-  a.__delitem__       a.__gt__            a.__mul__           a.__setitem__       a.insert
-  a.__delslice__      a.__hash__          a.__ne__            a.__setslice__      a.pop
-  a.__doc__           a.__iadd__          a.__new__           a.__sizeof__        a.remove
-  a.__eq__            a.__imul__          a.__reduce__        a.__str__           a.reverse
-  a.__format__        a.__init__          a.__reduce_ex__     a.__subclasshook__  a.sort
-
-For the most part you can ignore all the ones that begin with ``__`` since
-they are generally are internal methods that are not called directly.  At
-the end you see useful looking functions like ``append`` or ``sort`` which
+  a.append   a.extend   a.insert   a.remove   a.sort     
+  a.count    a.index    a.pop      a.reverse  
+
+Here you see useful looking functions like ``append`` or ``sort`` which
 you can get help for and use::
 
   a.sort

source/python/types.rst

@@ -54,7 +54,7 @@ Manipulating these behaves the way you would expect, so an operation (``+``, ``-
     >>> 8 * complex(-3.3,1)
     (-26.4+8j)  # int * complex = complex
 
-However, there is one case where this happens but is not desirable, and that you should be aware of, which is the division of two integer numbers::
+However, there is one case in Python 2 where this happens but is not desirable, and that you should be aware of, which is the division of two integer numbers::
 
     >>> 3 / 2
     1
@@ -71,6 +71,9 @@ After typing this, we can use the Python 3.x syntax::
     >>> 3 // 2
     1
 
+If you are writing new code in Python 2 then it's a fine idea to start each
+file with ``from __future__ import division`` at the top.
+
 Another way to prevent this is to cast at least one of the integers in the division to a ``float``::
 
     >>> 3 / float(2)
@@ -240,20 +243,13 @@ This will show the available attributes and methods for the Python list
 remember object methods!**
 ::
 
-    In [17]: a.<TAB>
-    a.__add__           a.__ge__            a.__iter__          a.__repr__          a.append
-    a.__class__         a.__getattribute__  a.__le__            a.__reversed__      a.count
-    a.__contains__      a.__getitem__       a.__len__           a.__rmul__          a.extend
-    a.__delattr__       a.__getslice__      a.__lt__            a.__setattr__       a.index
-    a.__delitem__       a.__gt__            a.__mul__           a.__setitem__       a.insert
-    a.__delslice__      a.__hash__          a.__ne__            a.__setslice__      a.pop
-    a.__doc__           a.__iadd__          a.__new__           a.__sizeof__        a.remove
-    a.__eq__            a.__imul__          a.__reduce__        a.__str__           a.reverse
-    a.__format__        a.__init__          a.__reduce_ex__     a.__subclasshook__  a.sort
-
-For the most part you can ignore all the ones that begin with ``__`` since
-they are generally are internal methods that are not called directly.  At
-the end you see useful looking functions like ``append`` or ``sort`` which
+::
+
+  In [17]: a.<TAB>
+  a.append   a.extend   a.insert   a.remove   a.sort     
+  a.count    a.index    a.pop      a.reverse  
+
+Here you see useful looking functions like ``append`` or ``sort`` which
 you can get help for and use::
 
     a.sort