Python Tips I Wish I Knew Earlier

List Comprehensions

List comprehensions are one of Python’s most elegant features. Instead of:

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

You can write:

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

Always use context managers for file operations:

# Good
with open('file.txt', 'r') as f:
    content = f.read()

# Avoid
f = open('file.txt', 'r')
content = f.read()
f.close()

F-strings make string formatting much cleaner:

name = "Alice"
age = 30
message = f"My name is {name} and I'm {age} years old"

When you need both index and value:

items = ['apple', 'banana', 'cherry']
for index, item in enumerate(items):
    print(f"{index}: {item}")

Just like list comprehensions, but for dictionaries:

squares_dict = {x: x**2 for x in range(10)}

These small improvements can make your Python code more readable and Pythonic!