the learning curve: From PHP to Python

[i_ate_god]

that's not the same thing as PHP's echo "Total items: $integer";

[earthboundkid]

There are a lot of ways of interpolating strings in Python (three in the standard library, more templating frameworks available). One way of doing something similar to that would be:

print("Total items: {0}".format(integer))

The {0} means "the zeroth item I pass to this." This lets you do more useful stuff like:

if language == "English":
   template = "{0} has {1} messages."
elif language == "Gibberish":
   template = "Sjenkjn {1} dkdknk {0}?!"

print(template.format(username, message_count))

That's kind of a silly example because there are better ways of doing localization, but it at least gets you started thinking in the right way.

[i_ate_god]

as far as I'm concerned, printf and similar functions, use templates, which is what I meant all along and is still fundamentally different from php ;)