Head First Programming

Appendix A. Leftovers: The Top Ten Things (we didn’t cover)

You’ve come a long way.

But learning how to program is an activity that never stops. The more you code, the more you’ll need to learn new ways to do certain things. You’ll need to master new tools and new techniques, too. There’s just not enough room in this book to show you everything you might possibly need to know. So, here’s our list of the top ten things we didn’t cover that you might want to learn more about next.

#1: Doing things “The Python Way”

Throughout this book, we have very stubbornly resisted writing code in the most correct Python Way. “That’s not how a Python programmer would do it,” was a familiar refrain heard from the Head First Programming technical reviewers. Without fail, and with the greatest of respect to our reviewers, we generally ignored this advice.

You see, every programming language has its preferred, tried and true, agreed, and accepted way of doing certain things, collectively known as programming idioms. And Python is no exception. This is, of course, a very good thing, because the more programmers using a particular language who follow the standard way of doing something, the better. Except, that is, when writing a book like this: one designed from the get-go to teach programming concepts.

There are times when the idiom, although very smart, can be hard to understand and even harder to explain. ...