Book Image

The Python Apprentice

By : Robert Smallshire, Austin Bingham
Book Image

The Python Apprentice

By: Robert Smallshire, Austin Bingham

Overview of this book

Experienced programmers want to know how to enhance their craft and we want to help them start as apprentices with Python. We know that before mastering Python you need to learn the culture and the tools to become a productive member of any Python project. Our goal with this book is to give you a practical and thorough introduction to Python programming, providing you with the insight and technical craftsmanship you need to be a productive member of any Python project. Python is a big language, and it’s not our intention with this book to cover everything there is to know. We just want to make sure that you, as the developer, know the tools, basic idioms and of course the ins and outs of the language, the standard library and other modules to be able to jump into most projects.
Table of Contents (21 chapters)
Title Page
Credits
About the Authors
www.PacktPub.com
Customer Feedback
Preface
12
Afterword – Just the Beginning

Moment of zen


Moment of zen: Code is written once but read over and over. Fewer is clearer:

Figure 7.1: Moment of Zen

Comprehensions are often more readable than the alternative. However it's possible to over-use comprehensions. Sometimes a long or complex comprehension may be less readable than the equivalent for-loop. There is no hard-and-fast rule about when one form should be preferred, but be conscientious when writing your code and try to choose the best form for your situation.

Above all your comprehensions should ideally be purely functional — that is they should have no side effects. If you need to create side effects, such as printing to the console during iteration, use another construct such as a for-loop instead.