stuffs

README.md

@@ -1,19 +1,25 @@
 # Python programming tutorial
 
-This is a Python 3 programming tutorial for beginners. If you have never
-programmed before click [here](basics/what-is-programming.md) to find
-out what programming is like and get started.
+This is a concise Python 3 programming tutorial for people who think
+that reading is boring. I try to show everything with simple code
+examples; there are no long and complicated explanations with fancy
+words. If you have never programmed before click
+[here](basics/what-is-programming.md) to find out what programming is
+like and get started.
 
 This tutorial is aimed at people with no programming experience at all
 or very little programming experience. If you have programmed a lot in
 the past using some other language you may want to read [the official
 tutorial](https://docs.python.org/3/tutorial/) instead.
 
-You can use Python 3.2 or any newer Python with this tutorial. Don't use
-Python 2. If you write a Python 2 program now someone will need to port
-it to Python 3 later, so it's best to just write Python 3 to begin with.
-Python 3 code will work just fine in Python 4, so you don't need to
-worry about that.
+You can use Python 3.3 or any newer Python with this tutorial. **Don't
+use Python 2.** If you write a Python 2 program now someone will need to
+convert it to Python 3 later, so it's best to just write Python 3 to
+begin with. Python 3 code will work just fine in Python 4, so you don't
+need to worry about that. Python 2 also has horrible
+[Unicode](http://www.unicode.org/standard/WhatIsUnicode.html) problems,
+so it's difficult to write Python 2 code that works correctly with
+non-English characters (like π and ♫).
 
 ## List of contents
 

basics/lists-and-tuples.md

@@ -230,10 +230,6 @@ like this:
 
 ![Different lists.](../images/differentlist.png)
 
-If you're using Python 3.2 or older you need to do `a[:]` instead
-of `a.copy()`. `a[:]` is a slice of the whole list, just like
-`a[0:]`.
-
 ## Tuples
 
 Tuples are a lot like lists, but they're immutable so they

basics/loops.md

@@ -300,10 +300,6 @@ Or if we just want to clear a list, we can use the `clear`
 >>>
 ```
 
-If you're using Python 3.2 or older you need to use `stuff[:]` instead
-of `stuff.copy()` and `stuff[:] = []` instead of `stuff.clear()`.
-`stuff[:]` is a slice of the whole list, just like `stuff[0:]`.
-
 ## Summary
 
 - A loop means repeating something multiple times.