How to Make Mistakes in Python

by Mike Pirnat

Even the best programmers make mistakes, and experienced programmer Mike Pirnat has made his share during 15+ years with Python. Some have been simple and silly; others were embarrassing and downright costly. In this O’Reilly report, he dissects some of his most memorable blunders, peeling them back layer-by-layer to reveal just what went wrong.

Genres: Programming, Nonfiction, Technology, Computer Science, Software, Coding

154 pages, ebook

First published January 1, 2015

About the author

Mike Pirnat counterpoints the surrealism of the underlying metaphor.

Reviews

[Petr Kopač · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's fun to read and there are some good notions of how not to write in python (or well, any language).

[Steve Clark · Rating 4 out of 5]

A short read, but some good general types on avoiding issues with Python programming

[Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I like this book a lot. As Python beginner (but Java experienced) I learned a lot of mistakes I will definitely meet. From coding style to structures, methods, finding errors. Every pitfall has a recomendation how to avoid it. I like the friendly style of this book.

Stare deeply into a line of code like SBD=J(D(H),SB) and it’s like gazing into the abyss.

If people on your team really like to import * and you’re having a hard time convincing them that it’s a bad idea, just slip this little gem into a module that they import everything from: False, True = True, False Yes, Python will let you reverse the meanings of True and False. Please use this knowledge with kindness… unless they really deserve it.

[Illia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ну таке. Скоріш тягне на пост для блога, може на два, ніж на цілу книгу.

[Piotr · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good position for beginner , you'll get some precious tips about what you should avoid in Python. Book is written in a friendly manner so it won't take you too much time to read it. You can easily add it to your to do list without sacrificing too much time.

[Vlad Bezden · Rating 5 out of 5]

Whole book is about Python best practices and tips.

[Patrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book did nothing to help my snake breeding side business. However, my programming work now is much cleaner.

[Aric · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some sage advice wrapped up in a small time investment. I strongly recommend this one.

[Samuel Taggart · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think the title is just amazing.

It's basically just a book that lists out a bunch of pitfalls and common antipatterns along with some better alternatives.

Refreshingly honesty. Very useful.

[Jason McDonald · Rating 5 out of 5]

A brief, hilarious whirlwind tour of the author's own personal dumbest coding mistakes. A must read for every Python developer.

[Philipp · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thanks to Sebastian Raschka's review I found out about this (link), a short book detailing some of the things that can go wrong in the life of a regular Python programmer according to the book's author. It starts with "these are the things that you should do (use Ipython/Jupyter, use virtualenv etc.) and then goes to all the things that went wrong in the author's lifeexperience with Python - forgetting to return values at the end of functions, weird monkeypatching that always goes wrong in a weird hard-to-debug spot at the worst time possible, not testing, too broad exception catching etc.

(Side-note: This is one of the reasons why I like Go - the Go compiler doesn't compile your code when something's off, about 25-40% of the problems in this book are impossible. You'll just have to deal with other problems...)

It's a very short read, you can read it in an afternoon. Of course it's subjective - a lot of my work with Python involves parsing files so I run into other problems, like assuming that the string numbers in the file somehow magically become floats, then doing maths with them, and 3*"123" becomes "123123123" instead of 369, or accidentally checking whether "1" > 9 (this is True in Python 2).

Recommended for: new Python programmers who've just finished their introductory course and want some "old-timer experience"; advanced Python programmers seeking to hone their craft, expert Python programmers who like to nod and stroke their big, white, bushy beard while saying "ah yes, I remember" while staring into the distance.

[Julio Biason · Rating 3 out of 5]

For anyone that works with Python for some time, most of the content of this book is "Hahaha, yeah, I did that too. The good old bad times." And, surely enough, you can't hold yourself nodding when the author mentions that you shouldn't do that.

I felt it lacked a bit of "this is the right way of doing it", like Uncle Bob did with Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship, where he picks a code and starts refactoring till it gets "correct". Most of the time, it's a bunch of code (sometimes, invalid code, but that's minor) and then a simple "don't do that".

[Aleksandar · Rating 4 out of 5]

An entertaining, and humbling look into mistakes, and anti-patterns that we all make. Pirnat goes over how to avoid such mistakes, why, and more importantly, and something everyone else seems to ignore, why we make those mistakes in the first place, and why they feel so good.

Recommend it to any Python developer for its humbleness, and accessibility.

[Gábor Hajba · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everyone makes mistakes. One learn from their own, others from mistakes done by others. This book is great if you want to see what mistakes a seasoned developer can make and made already.

This book is a reflection on past mistakes which happen to everyone so better be careful with your code: use this as some guide along the road.

[Alex Fürstenau · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's a nice and short book. He communicates, like everybody should, via stories. His stories are illustrated via real code examples. All this together makes a fine combination although I don't agree with everything he is saying.

[Vishell · Rating 2 out of 5]

2 start is not that bad, Goodread says: "it was ok". So another book that is useless for advanced python programmers. But if you are beginning to explore, i recommend you read it. `False, True = True, False` is quite a thing!

[Emad Mokhtar · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is a light weight book about developer's lesson learned during Python development career, nice and informative.

[Mohammad Laif · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author talk about his beginner mistakes, when he start programming in python. And teach you how to not repeat his stupid mistakes, by given you some tips from his experience.

[Bobiczdoh · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is useless, but fun to read.

[traims · Rating 2 out of 5]

The content would make a great conference presentation or a blog post. Too short for a book.