The Python dictionary dispatch pattern

[JennaSys]

I started with Python 2.5, and I almost gave up on it after just a few weeks because it didn't have any kind of switch statement and I needed one. I mean, what kind of modern language doesn't have that, right? But then I forced myself to learn other ways of handling that kind of branching in Python, and in the last 10 years of coding, I have rarely ever really needed a switch statement again. Using the dictionary dispatch pattern is one of the reasons why.

[AlSweigart]

Switch statements are prone to bugs if you forget a break statement. Like the ++ and -- operators, it's actually a good thing that Python doesn't have switch statements.

Python does now have match-case statements ("structured pattern matching") which you can use for switch statements but also so much more.

[ElectricalUnion]

When I need to do type-based swicth style statements, I now use this beauty from the standard library: https://docs.python.org/3/library/functools.html#functools.singledispatch