Python culture

Python has been adopted widely in the software industry. It is used by many different companies for different purposes, while also being an excellent education tool (it is excellent for that purpose due to its simplicity, making it easy to learn; it encourages good habits for writing readable code; it is platform-agnostic; and it supports modern object-oriented programming paradigms).

One of the reasons Python is so popular today is that the community around it is vast, vibrant, and full of brilliant people. Many events are organized all over the world, mostly either related to Python or to some of its most adopted web frameworks, such as Django.

Python’s source is open, and very often so are the minds of those who embrace it. Check out the community page on the Python website for more information and get involved!

There is another aspect of Python, which revolves around the notion of being Pythonic. It has to do with the fact that Python allows you to use some idioms that are not found elsewhere, at least not in the same form or ease of use (it can feel claustrophobic when one has to code in a language that is not Python, at times).

Anyway, over the years, this concept of being Pythonic has emerged and, the way we understand it, it is something along the lines of doing things the way they are supposed to be done in Python.

To help you understand a little bit more about Python’s culture and being Pythonic, we will show you the Zen of Python—a lovely Easter egg that is very popular. Open a Python console and type import this.

What follows is the result of that instruction:

>>> import this
The Zen of Python, by Tim Peters
Beautiful is better than ugly.
Explicit is better than implicit.
Simple is better than complex.
Complex is better than complicated.
Flat is better than nested.
Sparse is better than dense.
Readability counts.
Special cases aren't special enough to break the rules.
Although practicality beats purity.
Errors should never pass silently.
Unless explicitly silenced.
In the face of ambiguity, refuse the temptation to guess.
There should be one-- and preferably only one --obvious way to do it.
Although that way may not be obvious at first unless you're Dutch.
Now is better than never.
Although never is often better than *right* now.
If the implementation is hard to explain, it's a bad idea.
If the implementation is easy to explain, it may be a good idea.
Namespaces are one honking great idea -- let's do more of those!

There are two levels of reading here. One is to consider it as a set of guidelines that have been put together in a whimsical way. The other one is to keep it in mind and read it once in a while, trying to understand how it refers to something deeper: some Python characteristics that you will have to understand deeply in order to write Python the way it is supposed to be written. Start with the fun level, and then dig deeper. Always dig deeper.