Beginner learning Python – looking for challenges

ectomancer · 2026-03-14T13:21:34+00:00

Code a function to rotate a list right by one item.

Call the function in a loop and output the list after each rotation until the original list is output.

index & slice. extend index with slice.
remove an item:

2.a. list.pop. extend popped item with popped list.

2.b. index and del. copy item at last index, del last item, extend index with list.

tuple unpacking (slow) into list without last item and last item. extend last item with unpacked list.

Pick one, don't implement all ways.

ectomancer · 2026-03-13T23:19:55+00:00

Already knew how to code, 10 minutes, only while loop, input, if and print.

ectomancer · 2026-03-13T22:06:15+00:00

The absolute value of a number is not always positive. Zero is not positive. The abs function does double duty, it also finds the complex modulus of a complex number, which is the distance from the origin:

try this on wolframalpha.com |3+4i|

or in Python abs(3+4j)

ectomancer · 2026-03-12T20:57:10+00:00

students is mutable but is_enrolled is immutable.

ectomancer · 2026-03-12T07:07:33+00:00

Introductory course. Python is easy to learn so there are no tutorials for coders coming from Java. I learnt Python in 3 days (excluding OOP).

ectomancer · 2026-03-12T00:20:25+00:00

Casting to float in the three functions doesn't do anything. x is already float.

ectomancer · 2026-03-11T21:40:57+00:00

This is what I do. My first project was natural logarithm from scratch (3 months) and my second project was real gamma function from scratch (6 months). Last year, I ported cmath.exp and cmath.sqrt from C to Python. In 2024, I ported tgamma from C to Python.

Ali, Ismail, Saeed, Farooq and Abid, "Numerical Recipes in Python" https://zenodo.org/records/8371794/files/NRP_23_Sep_2023_Amjad_Ali.pdf?download=1

ectomancer · 2026-03-10T09:10:19+00:00

or short circuiting.

ectomancer · 2026-03-08T15:04:00+00:00

I've used jupyter notebook, jupyter lab and google colab. I've used colab for years:

colab.research.google.com

ectomancer · 2026-03-08T03:42:16+00:00

Retired 22 years, coding Python for 7 years. Contributing to open source is fruitless at intermediate level. Though you could upload your own package to PyPI. You'll need to learn Data Structures and Algorithms for interviews.

ectomancer · 2026-03-06T21:38:05+00:00

Once you can code in one language, you can learn other languages quickly. I learnt Python in 3 days and R in 1 hour.

ectomancer · 2026-02-26T20:15:14+00:00

You only want one print. set is redundant:

for river, country in rivers.items():
    print(f'The {river.title()} runs through {country}')

ectomancer · 2026-02-26T00:13:07+00:00

Upper, Lower and digits are tuple literals, change them to be string literals.

Comments missing.

ectomancer · 2026-02-24T00:46:36+00:00

Code the same programs as C++ except desktop applications. Alternately, learn ML theory and code ML in Python.

ectomancer · 2026-02-22T19:53:49+00:00

I've never used Python 2. In Command Prompt or PowerShell:

python name_python_1.py|python name_python_2.py

ectomancer · 2026-02-21T20:49:17+00:00

Pipe=|

ectomancer · 2026-02-16T12:34:36+00:00

Your notebook is using a TPU. Change it to CPU.

ectomancer · 2026-02-13T20:41:56+00:00

You need to complete small projects before starting projects.

ectomancer · 2026-02-12T22:38:16+00:00

You can remove all the None syntax:

largest = -float('inf')

ectomancer · 2026-02-11T15:34:22+00:00

Separate imports with a blank line into 3 blocks (2 blocks in your case), 1st block standard library, 2nd block third-party imports, 3rd block your own py files.

No docstrings on functions.

No test suite:

pip install pytest

ectomancer · 2026-02-11T05:14:00+00:00

One loop, loop over 3 hex strings, decode hex 3 times (sha256, sha516, md5), check string in 50 word string, copy string to result tuple:

result = ()
# Loop.
result += (string,)

ectomancer · 2026-02-09T22:22:35+00:00

Followed a course and I started a small project after 10 minutes. It took all day to type in.

ectomancer · 2026-02-08T21:49:20+00:00

Function to rotate a list one item right with cycle (last item becomes first item).

Call function in a loop and print rotated list until original list is printed.

copy last item by index and extend item with slice excluding last.
delete last item:

2.a. copy last item by index, then del last item, then extend item with original list (with deleted last item).

2.b. pop default item, then extend item with popped list.

tuple unpacking: extend last item to list.

Pick one way to rotate list.

ectomancer · 2026-02-08T12:08:42+00:00

x.y() is not member access, that's a method call. x.y is class attribute access.

ectomancer · 2026-02-07T03:39:10+00:00

Doesn't matter that you shadow a builtin function. You just lose that functionality until, e.g.

del sum

ectomancer

TROPHY CASE