Reaching back to 2008. Yes. Decade(s) ago. Python 2.5.

I was reminded of this when a former colleague pinged me about this: https://github.com/slott56/TigerShark.

Yes, it's an X12/EDI message parsing library from -- well -- decades ago.

Here's the code.

def get_categories(file):
    """
    Get categories.
    """
    verify_file(file)

    categories = set()

    with open(file, "r") as cat_file:
        while line := cat_file.readline().rstrip():
            categories.add(line)

    return categories

To me this was terrible. truly and deeply horrifying. Let me count the ways.

1. The docstring repeats the name of the function …

Using the clear() method of a dict isn't *wrong*. But. The reasons have to be investigated. I got a question about this code not working "properly." ("Properly"? Seems too vague to be useful.)

Here's a summary of the example.

final_list = []
temp_dict = {}
for obj in some_source:
    cool_function(obj, temp_dict)
    final_list.append …

Interesting data structures with O(n) performance. This can help to unscramble O(n²) problems allowing progress. https://pdsa.readthedocs.io/en/latest/index.html

Years ago, I was working with a client who was implementing their first web site.

Well, actually, it wasn't their first. It was their third. But their first two were haphazard "we hope this works" kind of web sites. They relied on third-party security and were pretty sure they were …

See Configuration Options in Code or INI Files? . Also, see Python as Configuration Language .

Here's some of the argument.

• Editing. Which is easier? Which is more expressive? Some say that Text (INI format especially) is easier -- but I don't see what. Python is just as easy as INI, and has …

See this question on Python objects deleting themselves . There was some fundamental confusion about objects, deletion and garbage collection.

Some additional material was posted in an answer (not in the question, where it belongs) making it a little hard to go from question to answers. The original poster's non-answer had …

A Gentle Reader provided references to folks who are distrustful of prepared statements.

See "Prepared Statements, Musings " and "Prepared statements are dead, long live prepared statements ".

In "musings" we're told "...users do not clean up/close unused prepared statements." For this reason, they're bad, and should be avoided. Eventually, "...unless …

The requirements are a sequence diagram showing a complex back-and-forth with the vendor's web service. Each request and reply is detailed, but there's no overview or summary stated. It's implied, and all of the business folks can articulate it, but no one wrote any of it down.

This looks like …

REST is cool because there's less protocol there -- little more than HTTP and some kind of representation for objects (XML, JSON or whatever.) It seems to me that REST with JSON is a very lightweight approach to implementing web services. Doing this in Python further trims down the technology stack …