import this and the Zen of Python
Written by Barry Warsaw in technology on Tue 08 June 2010. Tags: python, history,
Richard Jones is working on a talk for PyCon Australia and asked me about the history of the Zen of Python, Tim Peters' eternal words of wisdom, often quoted, on the essential truths of Python. At first, I couldn't find a reference to the first publication of this list, but then I did a better search of my archives and found that it was originally sent to the python-list mailing list on June 4, 1999, under the subject "The Python Way".
Interestingly enough, because I couldn't find that first reference immediately, I went back into my archives and researched the "this" module. Did you know that if you type the following at a modern Python interpreter, you get the Zen of Python?
% python3 -c "import this"
The Zen of Python, by Tim Peters
Beautiful is better than ugly.
Explicit is better than implicit.
Simple is better than complex.
Complex is better than complicated.
Flat is better than nested.
Sparse is better than dense.
Readability counts.
Special cases aren't special enough to break the rules.
Although practicality beats purity.
Errors should never pass silently.
Unless explicitly silenced.
In the face of ambiguity, refuse the temptation to guess.
There should be one-- and preferably only one --obvious way to do it.
Although that way may not be obvious at first unless you're Dutch.
Now is better than never.
Although never is often better than *right* now.
If the implementation is hard to explain, it's a bad idea.
If the implementation is easy to explain, it may be a good idea.
Namespaces are one honking great idea -- let's do more of those!
The story behind "import this" is kind of funny, and occurred totally behind the scenes, so I thought it might be interesting to relate how it happened …