Want to build your own bingo game? Python is a good way to get started. You can put together a basic version without getting bogged down in complicated code, then add features once the thing actually works. There’s a bit…
An online casino game looks like a single screen, but every action on it is a request to a server somewhere else. The browser sends it over HTTP, and the server checks it, applies the game’s rules, writes to a…
Updating timezone code in a Python app means checking that its dates still mean what you intend. pytz is a separately installed package for working with time zones, while zoneinfo is Python’s built-in option in Python 3.9 and later. This…
Before installing a package for a small job, it helps to know what Python already includes. The standard library is a collection of modules that Python distributes for common programming tasks. I’ll explain how standard-library modules differ from separately installed…
Naming a variable or function in Python means choosing a spelling that the language can read as a name. A Python identifier is the spelling used to name an object or another program element. This article explains Python’s identifier rules…
During debugging, you might set aside a few statements while testing the rest of a Python program. A comment starts with #, and Python ignores the text that follows on that line. This article shows how to comment out a…
Following a Python script means tracking which instructions run in order and which belong to a conditional block. A Python statement is an instruction the interpreter executes, and a compound statement groups instructions under a header. I’ll explain how to…
Working through nested data can leave you unsure how a function should handle each level. Recursion in Python lets a function call itself to solve a problem on a smaller part of its input. This article explains how recursive calls…
Choosing a name in Python starts with checking whether the language reserves that spelling. The standard-library keyword module checks hard keywords and soft keywords, whose grammar role depends on context. I’ll show you how to check both categories in the…
Different values can call for different actions in a script. A Python branch chain tests conditions in order and runs the first matching block. I’ll show how to build an if/elif/else chain and why the order of its conditions matters.…