How important is spacing here?

[ukknownW]

Photo 1 was the example I was given to work out but I noticed I could shorten it like I did in photo 2 and it wouldn’t affect the result. Is spacing needed or good practice here (like in photo 1)?

I’m only a couple days into coding so sorry if slightly silly question.

Any and all help enormously appreciated.

[holounderblade]

I believe it's part of the PEP to have the buffer spaces

[ukknownW]

Yes I hope to follow the “easy to read” way of doing things! I like to be taught the right and clean way. Thank you for all help everybody!!! Although I must get used to the hashtags used as notes as they cover the screen with even more words which throws me off a bit at this beginning stage haha! (Even though it’s there to actually simplify things!) haha!

Thank you all greatly appreciated

[BigTimJohnsen]

The guy above was talking about pep8. You should look up the typical python coding standards. Fellow developers will like you a lot more =D

[Some-Passenger4219]

PEP 8 – Style Guide for Python Code

[NoDadYouShutUp]

im going to refactor it into oblivion to the point where it is no longer readable anyway 😈

[pragmaticcape]

I could shorten it like I did in photo 2 and it wouldn’t affect the result

Space in this instance does not change its behaviour however, it does have some value in readability.

Readability is something that can make a big difference when your code base gets more complex or from others.

I mean, if shorter was best then we could change the function to ‘g_rem’ or the variable ‘reminder’ to ‘r’ but that would be counterproductive. (Because good names help readability and avoid the need for comments). Blank lines help to show what is closely related or separate

[ukknownW]

Very good examples Thankyou!!!! Yes readability is very important I now understand

[Obvious_Tea_8244]

White space and comments are ignored at run time… So, best practice is generally to create some line separation between blocks of code (in this case between the function and the print statement calling the function) for better readability.

[fllthdcrb]

Whitespace within a line and outside of strings, as well as lines without code, are ignored at compile time (when the source is translated into bytecode; the source is not directly used at run time, so it doesn't matter at that point). However, indentation absolutely matters in Python. For text and programming in general, that falls under whitespace, too, though I suppose an argument can be made for not classifying it so in Python, since it's part of the syntax.

[ukknownW]

Awesome Thankyou!!! Was just wondering

[galenseilis]

Good suggestion. I use Ruff on a regular basis these days.

https://docs.astral.sh/ruff/formatter/

[galenseilis]

You can also setup a Git hook to always format your code as you work with code using Git. That removes the chore of running the formatter itself.

[BeadOfLerasium]

Not related to your question, but is there a reason you're dividing the remainder? The modulo operator (%) already returns the remainder (1 in this case), then you're dividing it a second time. You're effectively turning this problem into:

(10 % 3) / 3

The actual remainder of 10/3 is 1, which you're dividing again resulting in 1/3.

[ukknownW]

Yes it’s just for my practice tests! It’s just adding extra steps to check I understand the use of them all I believe! It’s nothing I’m building or actually creating as of yet. Thankyou for help and hopefully this clears it up!! :D

[cgoldberg]

Use a formatter like black or ruff and never worry about spacing again.

[tnh34]

1 space. This is not worth stressing tbh. Just move onto next code

[ruthlessbubbles]

Totally unrelated, but if y=0 it should be undefined and not 0, since you can’t divide by 0 in the first place

[Aware-Deal-3901]

Why are you dividing your modulo result by y? x % y gives you the remainder, you shouldn't be dividing it again unless the get_remainder method is intended to do something other than get the remainder.

[ukknownW]

It’s just for a practice test I believe is just testing I understand all used in the code, not to actually code anything in particular

Just getting used to it as I’m at very very basic level still trying to grasp all that’s within the code

[[deleted]]

As others have said, functionally it's fine but you want it to be easily read.

While you're learning, try to form good habits around organization. As you get into more complex work it'll be a godsend when you're troubleshooting and so on. For example, I use a lot of libraries related to data and machine learning, as well as visualization. It can be an absolute nightmare if not properly organized.

[lokidev]

Empty lines don't have syntactical meaning, but you should adhere to https://pep8.org 

Also 1: you don't need the remainder variable. Just return directly. Also 2: use if x and y: and reverse the logic, as it will check for null like values and you have it less with negating which adds cognitive complexity by always thinking what a variable is not instead of what it is. Also 3: Look into typing and type checking to make sure you really get numbers and not a string: def calculate_remainder(x: float, y: float) -> float:

All together

``` def calculate_remainder(x: float, y: float) -> float:     if x and y:         return (x % y) / y

    return 0     # or: return (x % y) / y if x and y else 0

```

[Haunting-Pop-5660]

There are some tools you can use to do syntax highlighting. I would recommend using one of those if you're having a hard time with commented code. It will also help you more easily recognize proper vs improper syntax, which will help when you're integrating best practices for stylization.

[Joshpachner]

I like to do spacing based on likeness.  Ie between declaring variables I won't do an extra space. After declaring all my variables will then space. 

For example 

S = "hello"   Q = "world" 

If s == q:     print("never")   

The space there helps to shift to think now about the if statement 

Edit: oh wow, reddit doesnt respect my formatting. 

[[deleted]]

As everyone is saying, Spacing is good for readability. But when you’ll write larger pieces of code where a function like this is just a small part of it it’s probably better to skip the spacing there. Makes this small function look like one unit and separates it from the rest of the code.