fallback optionif neither of those links worktry general web search (whichof courseis what most readers will probably try first anyhowwherever it may livethis website (as well as 'reilly'sdescribed in the next sectionis where you can fetch the book examples distribution package--an archive file containing all of the book' examplesas well as some extras that are mentioned but not listed in the book itself to work along without having to type the examples manuallydownload the packageunpack itand consult its readme txt file for usage details 'll describe how example labels and system prompts in this book imply file locations in the package when we use our first script in the first as for the first three editionsi will also be maintaining an informal "blogon this website that describes python changes over time and provides general book-related notes and updates that you should consider supplemental appendix to this text 'reilly' website for this bookdescribed later in this prefacealso has an errata report systemand you can report issues at either my site or 'reilly' tend to keep my book websites more up to datebut it' not impossible that 'reilly' errata page may supersede mine for this edition in any eventyou should consider the union of these two lists to be the official word on book corrections and updates example portability the examples in this book were all developedtestedand run under windows and python the book' major examples were all tested and ran successfully on the upcoming python too (its alpha release)just before the book went to the printerso most or all of this book applies to python as well in additionthe code of and handful of parallel programming examples were run under cygwin on windows to emulate unix environment although python and its libraries are generally platform neutralsome of this book' code may require minor changes to run on other platformssuch as mac os xlinuxand other unix variants the tkinter gui examplesas well as some systems programming scriptsmay be especially susceptible to platform differences some portability issues are pointed out along the waybut others may not be explicitly noted since had neither time nor budget to test on and accommodate all possible machines that readers might use over the lifespan of this bookupdates for platform-specific behaviors will have to fall into the suggested exercises category if you find platform dependency and wish to submit patch for itthoughplease see the updates site listed earlieri'll be happy to post any platform patches from readers there preface xxxv