From Beginner to Experienced: 7 Best Practices for Every Python Developer
Jan 04, 2022 by Zulie Rane
If you’re looking to improve your coding, there are lots of steps you can take, but the first is focusing on Python best practices. It’s really important that your code is readable, testable, and maintainable. From picking good variable names, refactoring code that gets repeated out into its own method, or having clean and logical lines of inheritance and abstraction, there are a lot of qualities that differentiate code that someone wants to work with from code that everyone dreads having to maintain or develop further.
Roles in the Boot.dev Discord Server
Dec 19, 2021 by Lane Wagner
In our community Discord server, we have two main groups of roles you can take on as a member, earned roles and declared roles. Earned roles, as you would expect, you have to earn! You can get them in various ways as we’ll discuss shortly, but you can’t just ask for them. Declared roles on the other hand you simply assign to yourself, and are a way of showing the community what kinds of technologies you enjoy learning about, and what your programming goals are.
C# vs Python Comparison: Which Is Best for Backend Development, Machine Learning, and More
Dec 17, 2021 by Meghan Reichenbach
C# and Python represent the two sides of what it means to be a powerful language. C# is fast, lightweight, and flexible, while Python is robust, simple, and secure. But which language does coding best? Let’s find out as we compare Python and C#’s learning curve, speed, salary, and see how they rank for backend development, game development, and machine learning. By the end of this guide, you’ll know which language is best for you!
Python Assert Statement, How to Test a Condition
Dec 13, 2021 by Lane Wagner
In Python, an assertion is a statement that confirms something about the state of your program. For example, if you write a createUser function and you are sure that the user needs to be older than 18, you assert that the age field is greater than or equal to 18. You can think of an assert statement like a unit test that is performed at runtime. def createUser(user): assert user.age >= 18 tl;dr Assertions are simply boolean expressions that raise exceptions if their condition is False The assert statement is the built-in syntax for assertions in Python Developers often use assert to do type checking, and input/output validation for function signatures The assert statement is used for debugging purposes Anatomy of an assert statement in Python Python has a built-in assert statement, and its syntax is as follows.
Complete Guide to Removing Elements From Lists in Python
Dec 09, 2021 by Lane Wagner
While lists aren’t the most efficient data structure if you’ll be doing lots of deleting from the middle, there are definitely good ways to accomplish the task. The built-in remove() method should be your first option. Let’s go over some examples. Remove element in Python list by value primes = [2, 3, 5, 5, 7, 11] primes.remove(5) print(primes) # [2, 3, 5, 7, 11] primes.remove(5) # [2, 3, 7, 11] primes.
How to Use the Ternary Operator in Python
Dec 09, 2021 by Lane Wagner
Developers love concise code that’s easy to read, and that’s exactly what ternary operators are for. The ternary operator in Python lets you perform a small if/else statement in a single line. Let’s take a look at a few examples. Example of selecting the larger number with a Pythonic ternary bob_height = 6 jill_height = 7 larger_height = bob_height if bob_height > jill_height else jill_height # larger_height = 7 You’ll notice that a ternary in Python actually looks a lot like a normal if/else statement, just jammed into one line.
Removing Duplicates From a List in Python
Dec 09, 2021 by Lane Wagner
Let’s go over a few idiomatic ways to remove duplicates from lists in Python. Method #1 - Create a new list (simplest) This is the easiest algorithm to code, but because it requires creating a new list, also requires more memory and is a bit slower. def remove_duplicates(original): deduped = [] for item in original: if item not in deduped: deduped.append(item) return deduped We take advantage of Python’s in keyword here, only adding each item to the final list if it isn’t already present.
How to Check if a File Exists in Python
Dec 08, 2021 by Lane Wagner
When working with files in Python, you’ll often need to check if a file exists before you do anything else with it, such as reading from or writing to it. Luckily, the Python standard library makes this a piece of cake. Use pathlib.Path.exists(path) to check for files and directories from pathlib import Path path_exists = Path.exists("home/dir/file.txt") if path_exists: print("found it!") else: print("not found :(") Notice that path_exists will be True whether this is a file or a directory, it’s only checking if the path exists.
How to Use Golang’s Generics [Updated since 1.18]
Dec 06, 2021 by Lane Wagner
Generics in Go have been released with Go 1.18! This is one of the most eagerly-awaited features since the release of the language. Many devs have gone so far as to say Go’s previous lack of generic types made the language too painful to use at all. Let’s dive into what generics are, why you might use them in your own projects, and how they work in Go. What is a generic type?
Build a Social Media Backend Server in our New Gopher Gang Track
Nov 29, 2021 by Lane Wagner
We’re super excited to bring you our next learning track: Gopher Gang. We released our Python Track and Data Structures & Algorithms Track last month, and after such a positive response, we felt we had to do the same with our Golang course content. But after hearing some feedback from Reddit, Discord (join ours here), and a couple of other places, we felt we could further improve your CS learning experience by developing projects that you can create in VS Code or any other preferred code editor off-site, and display in your portfolio to land a Go programming job.