30 Python Best Practices, Tips, and Tricks

The author shares thirty concise Python best‑practice tips aimed at improving code quality, readability, and efficiency for everyday programmers.

1. Python version – Python 2 is no longer supported; ensure scripts run on Python 3.

2. Check minimum Python version – Use version checks in code:

if not sys.version_info > (2, 7):

# berate your user for running a 10 year python version

elif not sys.version_info >= (3, 5):

# Kindly tell your user (s)he needs to upgrade because you're using 3.5 features

3. IPython – An enhanced interactive shell with magic commands such as %cd, %edit, %env, %pip install [pkgs], %time, %timeit, and the ability to reference previous inputs via In and Out.

4. List comprehensions – Replace loops with concise expressions:

[ expression for item in list if conditional ]

mylist = [i for i in range(10)]

print(mylist)

# [0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]

squares = [x**2 for x in range(10)]

print(squares)

# [0, 1, 4, 9, 16, 25, 36, 49, 64, 81]

def some_function(a):

return (a + 5) / 2

my_formula = [some_function(i) for i in range(10)]

print(my_formula)

# [2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6, 7]

filtered = [i for i in range(20) if i%2==0]

print(filtered)

# [0, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18]

5. Inspect object memory usage – Use sys.getsizeof:

import sys

mylist = range(0, 10000)

print(sys.getsizeof(mylist))

# 48

myreallist = [x for x in range(0, 10000)]

print(sys.getsizeof(myreallist))

# 87632

6. Return multiple values – Functions can return tuples directly:

def get_user(id):

# fetch user from database

return name, birthdate

name, birthdate = get_user(4)

7. Data classes (Python 3.7+) – Reduce boilerplate and get automatic __eq__ and __repr__:

from dataclasses import dataclass

@dataclass

class Card:

rank: str

suit: str

card = Card("Q", "hearts")

print(card == card)

# True

print(card.rank)

# 'Q'

print(card)

# Card(rank='Q', suit='hearts')

8. Swap variables – One‑liner tuple unpacking:

a = 1

b = 2

a, b = b, a

print(a)

# 2

print(b)

# 1

9. Merge dictionaries (Python 3.5+) :

dict1 = { 'a': 1, 'b': 2 }

dict2 = { 'b': 3, 'c': 4 }

merged = { **dict1, **dict2 }

print(merged)

# {'a': 1, 'b': 3, 'c': 4}

10. Capitalize string titles :

mystring = "10 awesome python tricks"

print(mystring.title)

# '10 Awesome Python Tricks'

11. Split strings into lists :

mystring = "The quick brown fox"

mylist = mystring.split(' ')

print(mylist)

# ['The', 'quick', 'brown', 'fox']

12. Join list into string :

mylist = ['The', 'quick', 'brown', 'fox']

mystring = " ".join(mylist)

print(mystring)

# 'The quick brown fox'

13. Ternary operator : x = "Success!" if (y == 2) else "Failed!" 14. Count element frequencies with Counter :

from collections import Counter

mylist = [1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 5, 6, 6]

c = Counter(mylist)

print(c)

# Counter({1: 2, 2: 1, 3: 1, 4: 1, 5: 3, 6: 2})

print(Counter("aaaaabbbbbccccc"))

# Counter({'a': 5, 'b': 5, 'c': 5})

15. Chain comparison operators :

x = 10

if 5 < x < 15:

print("Yes")

16. Add colored terminal output with colorama :

from colorama import Fore, Back, Style

print(Fore.RED + 'some red text')

print(Back.GREEN + 'and with a green background')

print(Style.DIM + 'and in dim text')

print(Style.RESET_ALL)

print('back to normal now')

17. Date handling with python-dateutil :

from dateutil.parser import parse

logline = 'INFO 2020-01-01T00:00:01 Happy new year, human.'

timestamp = parse(logline, fuzzy=True)

print(timestamp)

# 2020-01-01 00:00:01

18. Integer division differences – Python 2 uses floor division for /, Python 3 uses true division; use // for floor division in Python 3:

# Python 2

5 / 2 = 2

5 / 2.0 = 2.5

# Python 3

5 / 2 = 2.5

5 // 2 = 2

19. Detect character encoding with chardet :

pip install chardet

chardetect somefile.txt

somefile.txt: ascii with confidence 1.0

20. Create a simple progress bar :

pip install progress

from progress.bar import Bar

bar = Bar('Processing', max=20)

for i in range(20):

# Do some work

bar.next

bar.finish

21. Quick web server – Serve current directory: python3 -m http.server These tips collectively help Python developers write cleaner, more efficient, and more maintainable code.