"Python Wizard," with apologies to The Who

[John Keisling]

After too much time coding Python scripts and reading Mark Lutz's
Python books, I was inspired to write the following lyrics. For those
too young to remember, the tune is that of "Pinball Wizard," by The
Who. May it bring you as much joy as it brought me!


I cut my teeth on BASIC
At scripting I'm no pawn
>From C++ to Java
My code goes on and on
But I ain't seen nothing like this
In any place I've gone
That modeling and sim guy
Sure codes some mean Python!

He knows his dictionaries
His exceptions never pass
His polymorphic methods
Extend each superclass
He uses indentation
Its lines are clearly drawn
That modeling and sim guy
Sure codes some mean Python!

He's a Python wizard
His code just never wrecks
A Python wizard
He knows simple beats complex

How do you think he does it?
(I don't know)
What makes him so good?

He codes with TkInter
He can render treble clefs
He uses lamdba functions
With *args in their defs
Defines his module search path
Of tuples he's the don
That modeling and sim guy
Sure codes some mean Python!

I thought I was
The scripting language king
But I just handed
My Python crown to him

He links in to libraries
All optimized in C
He always uses docstrings
For readability
He knows file iterators
He bids all bugs begone
That modeling and sim guy
Sure codes some mean Python!