Quotes About Programming

In fact, within Python, instance and class objects are mostly just dictionaries with links between them.

If you have to translate code to statements to understand it, it should probably be statements in the first place.

Technically, __str__ is preferred by print and str, and __repr__ is used as a fallback for these roles and in all other contexts.

In Python, practicality often beats aesthetics.

but slots — and other "virtual" attributes — won't be reported as instance data.

The problem here is a very general one: anytime you copy code with cut and paste, you essentially double your maintenance effort in the future.

Think about it: because we copied the original version, if we ever have to change the way raises are given (and we probably will), we'll have to change the code in two places, not one. Although this is a small and artificial example, it's also representative of a universal issue — anytime you're tempted to program by copying code this way, you probably want to look for a better approach.

and indent all but the simplest of blocks.

All the statements inside the class statement run when the class statement itself runs (not when the class is later called to make an instance).

remember that generator functions simply return objects with methods that handle next operations run by for loops at each level, and don't produce any results until iterated; and

polymorphism means that the meaning of an operation depends on the object being operated on.

In a sense, a module is like a single-instance class, without inheritance, which corresponds to an entire file of code.

Class attributes can also be created, though, by assigning attributes to the class anywhere a reference to the class object exists — even outside the class statement.

As usual in programming, if something is difficult for you to understand, it's probably not a good idea.

as this little function isn't needed elsewhere, it was written inline as a lambda.

any function that contains a yield statement is turned into a generator function.

everything is a "first class" object in Python —

One of the first questions that bewildered beginners often ask is: how do I find information on all the built-in tools?

When you say 'I wrote a program that crashed Windows,' people just stare at you blankly and say 'Hey, I got those with the system, for free.'

Television is now so desperately hungry for material that they're scraping the top of the barrel.

The programmers of tomorrow are the wizards of the future.

My duty as a teacher is to train, educate future programmers.

Your future isn't programmed by your past; it's programmed by your thoughts.

Our ultimate goal is extensible programming. By this, we mean the construction of hierarchies of modules, each module adding new functionality to the system.