Question

I’m a senior PHP and Perl dude, but Python is new to me. I’m enjoying learning it! I wrote the below code, but I can’t shake off the feeling that it could be better written by someone with “senior level” Python skills. Are you true Pythonians up to a fun challenge?

Please note: I want the code to readable. Python is suppose to be readable – we are not writing Perl here people! (example: I like that ‘weekday’ is a string instead of an integer, makes it VERY clear)

import datetime
today = datetime.datetime.now()
weekday = today.strftime("%a")
hourmin = int(today.strftime("%H%M"))
print "today here is: " + today.strftime("%c") # for debug
if weekday == "Sat" or \
   (weekday == "Sun" and hourmin < 2000) or \
   (weekday == "Fri" and hourmin > 1630) or \
   (hourmin >= 1630 and hourmin < 2000) :
    print "bad time"
else:
    print "good time"

Answer 1

You can map a day string to a lambda that takes hourmin and determines whether it is bad or not. For example:

# establish the "rules"    
bad_time = {
    'Sat': lambda h: True,    # always bad time!
    'Sun': lambda h: h < 2000,
    'Fri': lambda h: h > 1630,
}

# ... get your `weekday` and `hourmin` values

is_bad = bad_time.get(weekday, lambda h: (1630 <= h < 2000))(hourmin)
print 'bad time' if is_bad else 'good time'

edit: Follow kindall’s advice.