Hardly Pythonic Python

There's a music festival in my backyard this weekend.

It's an event called "Hardly Strictly Bluegrass". It takes place in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, which happens to be very close to my home.

What kind of event, you ask? Well... imagine a bluegrass music festival.

(if you know about Bluegrass. It's kind of country, kind of rock, kind of neither... very American, though.)

Anyway, you ask me: "Hey, Aaron... This Bluegrass festival... is it *strictly* Bluegrass?"

And I respond: "HA! Hardly!"

That's Hardly Strictly Bluegrass. Bluegrass is the theme, but no one will freak out if you leap on stage and start rapping or something.

So as I'm getting ready to party with several hundred thousand friends (no kidding, it's hyooge), it all reminds me of the idea of Pythonic code.

How important is it to be "pythonic"? What does "pythonic" even mean, anyway?

I mean... a few nubs out there will screech at you like an uptight I-don't-know-what if your code doesn't follow their idea of what "pythonic" means.

(I don't invite those people to parties.)

But you know, "pythonic" is like "bluegrass".

It's an idea. Loosely defined.

And it's something your code tends to move toward. It's good stuff. But you often don't quite get there.... and you never really stay there.

That's really okay.

So if you've been worried about this at all... your friend Aaron is telling you to relax. Go ahead and make your code pythonic, or pythonic-ish.

But don't be afraid to throw some rap lyrics in there, so to speak.