il Thu, 5 Feb 2004 10:39:37 +0900, "Josef 'Jupp' SCHUGT" <jupp / gmx.de>
ha scritto::


>The problem with Python is that Python's syntax looks awful to me
>and don't like the idea of learn more Python than necessary for
>assimilation. Is there an online Python tutorial that just describes
>the skeleton and what which function is good for?

look at the kanguage reference:
http://python.org/doc/current/ref/ref.html
that should explain you the basic syntax. 

About functions: just open python as interactive shell and use
help()like this

>>> help(str)
Help on class str in module __builtin__:

class str(basestring)
 |  str(object) -> string
 |
 |  Return a nice string representation of the object.
 |  If the argument is a string, the return value is the same object.
....

or 

>>> help([].sort)
Help on built-in function sort:

sort(...)
    L.sort(cmpfunc=None) -- stable sort *IN PLACE*; cmpfunc(x, y) ->
-1, 0, 1


(btw, why the hell list.sort() in python returns 'None' ?)