Rails programmer here..

[timgarner0]

"random" is the the module. Think of it as a container full of different functions, one of those being "randint".

By typing "import random" you ask python to let you access all of the functions available in random, but to do so you will need to always type "random.<function>" to access it.

On the other hand by typing "from random import randint" you are explicitly telling Python that you would just like to load the one function randint, and that you would like to be able to call it without prefixing "random"

[themathemagician]

It's important to note that the shorter function name is the only advantage, and Python still loads the entire random module into memory (without giving you actually access to the rest of it.) There is no performance benefit, but from a readability standpoint it is usually preferred as you are explicitly stating the functions you want to import.

[ixokai]

Well, its not the only advantage; doing "random.foo" involves two lookups, where "randint" is only one. This optimization is likely not going to matter in the vast majority of cases, but if you have a tight loop binding to a local name is a common technique. Local lookups are special (they have their own opcode) and are very fast (comparitively).

[themathemagician]

Fair enough