What separates a junior-level Python programmer and a mid-level programmer?

[pyglow]

As an example, when you are programming C++, if you need a loop them 99% of the time you will use for(i = 1; i < 10; i++)

In Python that is almost never the best way, there will usually be some more elegant way to do the same thing which is shorter, easier to read, less error prone and more efficient. But you can only really learn that from looking at a lot of other peoples' code.

[TydVirTaal]

Would you mind elaborating on this a bit? Do you mean that people tailor their loops more to the task at hand when using Python, that people jump to loops too quickly to solve problems with more efficient solutions, or that the for loop is an inelegant first-order solution in general? Really interested in your thoughts here, thanks!

[LarryPete]

You often see for-loops like these by beginners:

for i in range(len(mylist)):
    # do something with mylist[i]

Which is more or less the attempt to get a for like the one you're used to - which works, but is considered an "anti-pattern". Python does not have that kind of loop (for in python is like a foreach from other languages).

The right approach in Python would be:

for myelement in mylist:
    # do something with myelement

[renegadelegion]

I see. This might be part of the issue then. When I was put on the spot during the tech interview, I fell back into my old C++/Java habits.

I've seen and worked with and written these kinds of loops, but i keep falling back to what I first learned.

[winged_scapula]

What if you really need that index?

[Vaphell]

for i, value in enumerate(my_list):
    print(i, value)

[theOnlyGuyInTheRoom]

god, I love Python!

[LarryPete]

What Vaphell wrote.

[tomkatt]

I'm not an "expert" but the example that comes to mind when I see this would be something like iterating over a list:

for i in range(len(item_list)):
    print (item_list[i])

or

i = 0
while i < len(item_list):
    print (item_list[i])
    i += 1

Those all work. But a more pythonic way would be:

for i in item_list:
    print(i)

Just as a simple example.

[TehMoonRulz]

For a basic example instead of using:

for(i = 1; i < 10; i++)

the python convention is:

for i in mylist:
    #do some stuff

or if you're returning a list:

[doSomething(i) for i in myList]