Problem-Solving Like a Python Pro

A Hands-On Guide to Writing Clean, Flexible, and Future-Proof Python Code

Photo by Parabol | The Agile Meeting Tool on Unsplash

[If you are a non-paying member, use this link to read this article!]

Introduction: Coding Is Thinking

Let me tell you a story about two Python programmers: Alice and Bob. Alice just finished an online Python bootcamp. Bob, on the other hand, has been writing Python for years-but both often hit the same wall:

“Why is my code working… but so ugly? So fragile? So repetitive?”

This article is about smashing that wall.

We’re not going to talk about fancy frameworks or obscure syntax. We’re going to fix the real problem: how you think before and while coding. These are the mental tools that separate the scripters from the system designers, and the code-wranglers from the code-whisperers.

Let’s go.

1) Think Like a Pro

Imagine you’re scraping a list of blog posts. You write this:

def get_titles():
    titles = []
    with open("blogs.csv") as f:
        for line in f:
            parts = line.strip().split(',')
            titles.append(parts[1])
    return titles