Python Refactoring: There's Always Room for Improvement

[s-shemmee]

In programming, there is always more than one way to solve a problem. However, you will find that some solutions are usually better than others. Whenever you write code, there is usually a way that code can be improved either for improved readability, better performance, or best practices. Two rules of thumb to remember when refactoring your code are: Keep it Simple and Don't Repeat Yourself.

Refactoring (aka. cleaning up) our code

Let's tidy up our code so that it is shorter and cleaner. We can take our original list and actually change the function to return a lower case version of a true input when it runs, which eliminates having to list out specific upper/lower cases. Like so:

answer = input("Do you want to hear a joke? ")

affirmative_responses = ["yes", "y"]
negative_responses = ["no", "n"]

if answer.lower() in affirmative_responses:
    print("I'm against picketing, but I don't know how to show it.")
    # Mitch Hedburg (RIP)
elif answer.lower() in negative_responses:
    print("Fine.")
else:
    print("I don't understand.")

• And we can use .lower to eliminate the need for a list entirely:

answer = input("Do you want to hear a joke? ")

if answer.lower() in affirmative_responses:
    print("I'm against picketing, but I don't know how to show it.")
    # Mitch Hedburg (RIP)
elif answer.lower() in negative_responses:
    print("Fine.")
else:
    print("I don't understand.")

There are some hiccups that may result from refactoring (depending on what your input is) but in general, this is a great way to improve your code.