What do you wish you'd known about when you started learning Python? [closed]

Answer 1

Learn how to use iPython It's got Tab completion. View all the elements in your namespace with 'whos'.

After you import a module, it's easy to view the code:

>>> import os
>>> os?? # this display the actual source of the method
>>> help() # Python's interactive help. Fantastic!

Most Python modules are well documented; in theory, you could learn iPython and the rest of what you'd need to know could be learned through the same tool.

iPython also has a debug mode, pdb(). Finally, you can even use iPython as a python enabled command line. The basic UNIX commands work as %magic methods. Any commands that aren't magic command can be executed:

>>> os.system('cp file1 file2')

Answer 2

Decorators. Writing your own is not something you might want to do right away, but knowing that @staticmethod and @classmethod are available from the beginning (and the difference between what they do) is a real plus.

Answer 3

What I really liked: List comprehensions, closures (and high-order functions), tuples, lambda functions, painless bignumbers.

What I wish I had known about sooner: The fact that using Python idioms in code (e.g. list comprehensions instead of loops over lists) was faster.

Answer 4

That multi-core was the future. Still love Python. It's writes a fair bit of my code for me.

Answer 5

I really like list comprehension and all other semifunctional constructs. I wish I had known those when I was in my first Python project.

Answer 6

Lambda functions

http://www.diveintopython.org/power_of_introspection/lambda_functions.html