Stop using python, let it die for god's sake!
Python built-ins worth learning
51–60 of 69 posts
Re: Python built-ins worth learning
#52For a few moments I thought of all these years during which I could have just typed "breakpoint" instead of "import pdb; pdb.set_trace()". Luckily it's been added only recently (3.7) :)
Wow I had the same reaction.
And that's despite the fact that I read an article a few weeks ago about this new feature! If you haven't read it, I highly recommend it, because there's more to the breakpoint feature than mentioned here (basically, you can set an env variable to choose which callable is activated on breakpoint, meaning you can turn on and off debugging on production systems, or even set prod systems to open a web port for debugging): https://hackernoon.com/python-3-7s-new-builtin-breakpoint-a-...
Re: Python built-ins worth learning
#53I notice that "globals" is on the "you won't use this much" pile. I am wondering, when using Python interactively from Emacs, I often do this kind of thing:
if 'myvar' not in globals():
myvar = ...
(Note, it's helpful to be able to dirty the variable when necessary by simply,
del myvar
)Re: Python built-ins worth learning
#54I always tend to recommend intermediate/advanced programmers to take a look at `functools` and `collections` packages - they are filled with amazing things that you haven't even though you need! My favourites are `functools.partial`, `collections.Counter` and `collections.defaultdict` that are used very often by people who are aware of their existance.
Also `itertools.product` is very useful to avoid nested for-loops.
Re: Python built-ins worth learning
#55A recent(-ish) addition to Python 3 I also think is worth mentioning is the statistics module: https://docs.python.org/3/library/statistics.html
Every codebase eventually needs an averaging function, now you don't have to re-implement it yourself every time. Plus it's a nice toolbox of a few different utilities that you would otherwise need to install numpy/scipy/etc. to get.
Re: Python built-ins worth learning
#56> Many Python users rarely create classes. Creating classes isn’t an essential part of Python, though many types of programming require it. Huh. Okay.
It totally depends on the kind of work you're doing. My first few years with Python I never defined a class. I (and imagine most people) were working on code get from a to b. There's a lot of that kind of work to be had. Only later when I started writing modules and libraries did I need to.
I also spent years writing Python scripts without a single class. I didn't really understand the point of objects at all. I used them because they were part of library interfaces, but I never created them. The scripts didn't have to manage much state, so writing everything in a pure-functional style worked fine. Nobody could really explain to me what objects were all about - all the arguments seemed to apply equally to functional programming ("re-use", "encapsulation" etc).
Then I had to write a piece of software that heavily interacted with various bits of physical hardware, each with masses of state (serial communication and so forth). Suddenly the need for isolating state became terribly obvious. After seeing how some libraries did it, I wrote a class for every bit of hardware that abstracted the state away and provided a functional interface. It all worked terribly well, and it was a real lightbulb moment for me.
Re: Python built-ins worth learning
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
I use defaultdict so damn often, it honestly should even be a builtin in my opinion. You also forgot `itertools`, which imo is even more useful than `functools`. I use `chain` and `groupby` quite often. There's also `collections.deque` which is a quick linked list implementation if you need either a stack or a queue.
Forgive me doesn’t deque mean double ended queue? Also why can’t a simple array behave like a list?
Yes it does mean double ended queue. I'll assume you mean a python list when you say simple array. One drawback of lists is that you cannot add a new element to the start of a list in constant time (with a python list it requires O(n) time), whereas you can with a deque.
Re: Python built-ins worth learning
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
It totally depends on the kind of work you're doing. My first few years with Python I never defined a class. I (and imagine most people) were working on code get from a to b. There's a lot of that kind of work to be had. Only later when I started writing modules and libraries did I need to.
I also spent years writing Python scripts without a single class. I didn't really understand the point of objects at all. I used them because they were part of library interfaces, but I never created them. The scripts didn't have to manage much state, so writing everything in a pure-functional style worked fine. Nobody could really explain to me what objects were all about - all the arguments seemed to apply equally…
You could have still kept the massive state in a dict or a list or a tuple and passed that dict around from one function to another, could you not? Why did it become necessary to implement classes?
Re: Python built-ins worth learning
#59I miss the "map" function. Sadly it was removed in the transition from Python2 to Python3. In Python3, "map" is a class.
Re: Python built-ins worth learning
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
I also spent years writing Python scripts without a single class. I didn't really understand the point of objects at all. I used them because they were part of library interfaces, but I never created them. The scripts didn't have to manage much state, so writing everything in a pure-functional style worked fine. Nobody could really explain to me what objects were all about - all the arguments seemed to apply equally…
You could have still kept the massive state in a dict or a list or a tuple and passed that dict around from one function to another, could you not? Why did it become necessary to implement classes?
I agree.
To be sure classes have a place and can be really useful, but so many people just create classes when they add no benefits.
Clear code always wins imho