"Effective Python" ideas

[dopplershift]

Been reading effective Python. Some things that might need reviewing:

• [ ] Use generators instead of constructing lists and returning
• [ ] enumerate(container, start)

(will add others as I keep reading)

[dopplershift]

Similar, but from a Raymond Hettinger talk (iter taking a sentinel was already on my list). This:

blocks = []
while True:
    block = f.read(32)
    if block == '':
        break
    blocks.append(block)

can be turned into:

blocks = []
for block in iter(partial(f.read, 32), ''):
    blocks.append(block)

And really:

blocks = list(iter(partial(f.read, 32), ''))

And that iter construct can be passed to things like sorted, min, max, etc.

[dopplershift]

Linking Ned Batchelder's talk Loop like a native so I don't lose it--it's another good reference for these kind of things.

[dopplershift]

Also:

1. Can mutate dictionary while looping over it if you use .keys() rather than looping over dict directly.
2. Construct dictionaries from iterable of pairs
3. defaultdict
4. vars() instead of reading class __dict__
5. ChainMap to replace combining a bunch of dicts together
6. Tuple unpacking to keep state in lock-step
7. No del l[0], l.pop(0), l.insert(0, item)
8. ignored context manager to ignore exceptions
9. Don't check for file before removing--race condition