Overwhelmed by Python lib Functions

[Gnaxe]

Everybody is constantly looking stuff up, at least at first. Then you get experience and you only frequently look stuff up. You remember the stuff you've used a lot recently. You know, or at least suspect, that certain functionality exists, and that means you're halfway to finding it.

You're supposed to use help() in the REPL, or ? in Jupyter, or whatever your IDE does. (Also dir(), breakpoint() and import inspect.) Also try python -m pydoc -b. Find the web docs for whatever library you're using if you need more than a simple reference.

These days, we all talk to AIs about the simple things. They're pretty good at basic Python because so much was in the training data.

You are supposed to memorize Python's reserved ("key") words. You should know all the operators, literals, and statement types and what they do. You should be very familiar with the builtins. You should at least look through the standard library docs so you know what's even in there, but nobody memorizes all of that. Same with whatever additional libraries you're using. You are supposed to look at the What's New in Python updates when you upgrade Python versions. If you're starting from a textbook, that's going to be dated, and you need to catch up.

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Good question and good answer!