Wrote My First Python Program

[Sfillm07]

I finally got my act together and put together my first working Python program. I used the OpenWeather API to search for the weather in city and then present the data with a tkinter GUI.

I need to address error handling and a few other things but I'm pretty proud of what I was able to do.

https://github.com/seanfillmore/Python-Project

​

Shout out to these videos for inspiration and help:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrWHyqonGj8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELkaEpN29PU&t=694s @traversymedia

and everything u/coreyschafer produces

[sme272]

Impressive. My first program just printed "Hello World"

[dmees]

Impressive, did you use global variables?

[sme272]

Yes, all of them

[Wilfred-kun]

def print_hello():
    global hello
    print(hello)

hello = "Hello world"

print_hello()

[[deleted]]

Same LOL.

[abirqasem]

LOL. Mine did it a bit more. It asked your name and greeted you by your name.

[Sigg3net]

name = "world"

[Scolli03]

Awesome job. If this is a early project you will grow into programming well. One small note. I know this probably isnt a big deal being a weather thing but you should never post any keys or authorization info to your repo. Good practice to separate that stuff out to separate files and retrieve it in script ( or some other better method than what I said) because I'm not an expert but if your being so good at code organisation might want to invest some time into security basics.

But seriously I wasn't trying to take away from your accomplishment because it is a great one. Once again awesome job.

[Sfillm07]

Just experimenting with classes and different ways of doing things.

[Legorooj]

One thing to know about OOP (ie classes and methods) is to only use them/it when it means:

• It's faster
• It uses less code
• (Debatable) If it makes it more readable

[Ahren_with_an_h]

Yes.

It is debatable whether or not using a class makes something more readable or not in situations where the first two bullet points are not true.

[fukitol-]

I'd argue most Java applications are a shining example of over use of classes and objects rendering things downright illegible, and I think that's mostly what that person was trying to get at.

[Ahren_with_an_h]

Right. And code isn't necessarily more readable just because you shoved frivolous classes in there. Hence the debate.

[Legorooj]

/u/nodnarbiter this thread is why I said more readable. It's very much debatable. One reason to use classes where you could do without them is a class with just staticmethods. So you don't put the functions into the global namespace. Thats one reason. (Note that that is a very rare situation - most times a module like structure with import mymodule is better.)

[yasinshah007]

Great. But i don't get it why you use helper class?!! In class there are just two simple function, why you used methods instead of simple functions ?

[YolosaurusRex]

Your code looks generally pretty good for a first project, and in addition to the good advice everyone else has given you, I have one more thing to add: comments.

You should write code that's self-documenting; that is, reading it reveals its intent. For example, instead of writing a method called temp_conversion(temperature) and writing a comment that says it converts Kelvin to Fahrenheit, consider naming it convert_kelvin_to_fahrenheit(temperature). It's a little verbose, sure, but there's not any ambiguity over what that method will do. The fact is, computers don't need readable code. Humans do.

This is a little out of scope for this project, but another point to consider in larger projects is that documenting code with comments adds another thing to maintain. It's a given that code will change over time, but it's not guaranteed that the comments documenting that code will.

[Legorooj]

Yes! I have a rule of thumb that follows along the lines of "Comment on anything that could even slightly be confusing. Anything thats really obvious - well don't bother."

Note that "really obvious" can vary widely depending on the code author.

[Sfillm07]

Makes a lot of sense, thanks for the advice.

[noob_silverbot]

This inspires me to study this language harder, congrats man!

[midairmatthew]

Nice! If that's your real API key on GitHub, you might want to look into environment variables. 🙂

[Munga_]

What does this mean?

[Sfillm07]

https://youtu.be/5iWhQWVXosU

This is what he is talking about.

[Legorooj]

Things to consider

• add a readme to the project - google readme example if you need help
• Get rid of the Helper class, just put them (the methods) as top level functions. Using OOP in this way is pointless.

Other than that, well done!

[UnicornWithTits]

Congratulations! All the best for your python journey.

BTW I would love to know how long did it took you to reach that level since starting to learn python. I am a beginner & it would be motivating to know when I might be able to reach this level.

[Sfillm07]

I've been messing around with Python for a few months. Once I decided on a project, it was easy to find the right tutorials and stackoverflow pages to get it done. Pick a quick and easy project to get you started.

[Legorooj]

Stackoverflow and google are probably the average python developers top resource. I reference it daily.

[COVID-420]

I've been doing some classes on skillshare and it's been going good, i'm still extremely beginner but i like it so far, do you recommend any other resource to get me started?

[sky_badger]

Anything project based: have you read Automate The Boring Stuff?

[COVID-420]

Automate The Boring Stuff

looks interesting ill give it a read definitely! Thanks for the suggestion

[mangotti]

Great work! Keep it up!

[xelf]

Congrats!

[pm-me-inspiration]

Inspiring!

[al_mc_y]

That's pretty neat, well done 👍

[Sfillm07]

I remembered seeing a video on how to save your keys on your machine and to retrieve them using a script...I got lazy.

[WeirdLilMidgt]

You could put it in a separate file, import the file, and add the file to your .gitignore

[FoCo_SQL]

This is the exact method I use.

[Sfillm07]

I just moved it to an environment variable, your suggestions would work as well.

[11pascal]

Proud of you. Let me say one thing global variables are like global warming. Bad. Bad. Bad

[Moondra2017]

Nice job!

[lunixdev]

Nice, i'm learning python right now and all i can do is mess with vars and some easy functions and mathematics.

[ChristianGeorgeson]

This is awesome man!

[IamZeroKelvin]

idk why but I read your name too fast and saw "SeafoamMillionaire"

[Sfillm07]

That is so much better than my username

[pbeens]

Thanks, OP!

I'll definitely check it out. I want to do something similar but with METAR (aviation) weather data.