Pydon'ts

Write elegant Python code

A series of articles that teaches you how to make the best use of the core Python features. The Pydon'ts are available as an e-book that you can read for free below.

The walrus operator := can be really helpful, but if you use it in convoluted ways it will make your code worse instead of better. Use := to flatten a sequence of nested ifs or to reuse partial computations.

In Python, if you are doing something that may throw an error, there are many cases in which it is better to "apologise than to ask for permission". This means you should prefer using a try block to catch the error, instead of an if statement to prevent the error.

How should you unpack a list or a tuple into the first element and then the rest? Or into the last element and everything else? Pydon't unpack with slices, prefer starred assignment instead.

The "Zen of Python" is the set of guidelines that show up in your screen if you import this. If you have never read them before, read them now and again from time to time. If you are looking to write Pythonic code, write code that abides by the Zen of Python.