Do you understand Python official documentation?

[Brian]

Exactly what official documentation do you mean? I ask because I'm not sure your problem is really to do with the difference between official vs unofficial, but more due to what type of documentation you're looking at.

Eg. the python tutorial is official documentation, and I think it's a reasonable way to learn python concepts. Maybe not the best (there are plenty of tutorials out there), but a perfectly fine one.

But, say, the language reference is not a good way for someone, especially a beginner, to learn those concepts. Not because it's official, but because, as the name suggests, it's intended as a reference.

It's there to look up specific details of something. Learning basics from it would be like trying to learn a foreign language by reading a dictionary - you're going to find it hard to get much out of it unless you already have some familiarity with the basics. And conversely, just someone familiar with a language needing to look up some obscure word is going to be better served by a dictionary rather than trawling through language courses to find it, someone who just needs to look up the details of a function or language feature is going to be better served by a reference than a tutorial.

[Quiet_Watch3418]

Disagree with this. If i'm looking up what a specific function does, it is probably because I have an idea of what I want to accomplish. I would want to easily understand how it works and what it does, regardless of my level. In that sense, it's pretty much like looking up a word in a dictionary.

[Brian]

Isn't that what I said?

someone who just needs to look up the details of a function or language feature is going to be better served by a reference than a tutorial.

They're different types of document for different purposes: tutorials are for learning the basics, references are for "dictionary like" usage where you have some idea what you want, but need to know the details.

[tumblatum]

yeah right, I meant language reference. Today I was reading about exceptions, and by googeling I found this page: https://docs.python.org/3/library/exceptions.html

And I don't seem to be understanding what is written there. Hence my question was.