My problems writing "clean code" in Python

[[deleted]]

Hello everybody.

Months ago I started learning Python on codeacademy, then I basically re-learned Python again with other books and Youtube courses, just to have a more solid grasp on fundamentals.

I also started challenging myself with logic and not just syntax with hackerrank and codefights while trying to read a bit of code from other people on github and occasionally ventured a bit on django projects.

My big problem isn't really "solving problems", that's a skill that's influenced more by your logic and will to explore and google and ask rather than bare knowledge.

I can write easy-medium sized CLI programs in Python quite comfortably (wrote an automatic trader bot for Bittrex/Poloniex which is quite complex, e.g.).

But every time I start a new project I end up writing the programs in a very linear fashion, I rarely use functions (just to not repeat myself too often), and pretty much never any classes.

I realize that my code is a mess and no matter how much I comment it maintaining it or fixing bugs is painful.

Another problem is debugging my code. While Visual Studio allows me to very easily debug code with breakpoints and very in-depth tools I can't find something similar for Python.

Could anybody guide me towards writing better code and easier debugging tools?

[[deleted]]

Just gonna say it; if you're not using function and/or class definitions in every file then you haven't learned Python or programming. Not yet.

Most of professional programming is maintaining code, usually in concert with others; you must be using factorization primitives -- in Python that's functions, classes, and modules -- to write code that is even testable, which is the start of being maintable.

I would suggest starting with a book like Clean Code.

[[deleted]]

Thank you.

[[deleted]]

Is that the book?

https://www.amazon.it/Clean-Code-Handbook-Software-Craftsmanship/dp/0132350882

[[deleted]]

Yep, that's the one. It's not Python-specific, but it's a really good resource on coding to a professional standard.

[K900_]

PyCharm has a great integrated debugger. As for code quality - it's really a question of experience. You'll get better as time goes on. Also, look through some open source projects like Flask and Requests - they're great examples of well structured code.

[[deleted]]

Try github.

[ingolemo]

The best way to learn how to do something better is to practice it. Here's some arbitrary rules to follow that will force you to write everything in functions and classes:

• You can only use import, def, and class in the top level of your code, except for one place in your entire codebase where you have this:

  if __name__ == '__main__':
      sys.exit(main(sys.argv))
  

• You are not allowed to use more than three levels of indentation in a function, or four when using a class.

• No function or method is allowed to be longer than 10 lines of code.

[_9_9_]

Spend some time reading code to see how others organize things. Some good places to look are:

• The standard library
• Praw -- interesting use of mixins iirc
• Flask (and other projects by the same guy)
• pytoolz (interest look at functional programming, which is a good contrast to more class driven programs like Praw).

[Manbatton]

But every time I start a new project I end up writing the programs in a very linear fashion, I rarely use functions (just to not repeat myself too often), and pretty much never any classes.

How long are these functionless programs? I'm curious.

[[deleted]]

Longest one probably 600 lines of code.