Stylistic changes and minor improvements

PEP 8 prefers if and while statements without parentheses. It also prefers using the default truthiness of empty strings versus querying the length (although in some cases it's more clear).
Add docstrings.

Changed python comments into docstrings as per PEP 8. Also added some new ones.
Remove random .txt file
Convert README to GitHub flavored markdown
forgot to add README.md
Merge pull request #8 from jmu303/master

Minor stylistic changes, added docstrings