Major consistency fixes

* All functions that call commands are now private (__*) and move them
  to the top of the file
* Renamed functions that parse lists to parse_*
* Import the print_function stuf for older versions of python
* Add docstrings to all non-private functions
* Adding '{N}' instead of '{}' to the str.format parts (required for
  python<2.6). Mostly in test_ss.py