Python Dates
At first glance the datetime module in the python standard library (full documentation available at http://docs.python.org/lib/module-datetime.html appears as an insane mish-mash of things. The types it makes available are date, time, datetime and timedelta. My initial confusion stemmed from the fact that the module name is the same as one of the type names (datetime and datetime.datetime) and this is one of the only times when I have thought that naming types in camel case is a good idea: datetime.DateTime might have been a saner approach. Nevertheless, we continue: A datetime.time is a time, a datetime.date is a date, and a datetime.datetime is a date with a time. A datetime.timedelta is a difference between any of these times. Simple enough. Usage of these types can be made easier by using their "alternative constructors" which are a set of class methods, and can in some cases be more useful than the actual constructor. For example: >>> from datetime import date...