Best Practices for Python Main Functions

You’ll learn about four best practices you can use to make sure that your code can serve a dual purpose:

1. Put most code into a function or class.
2. Use __name__ to control execution of your code.
3. Create a function called main() to contain the code you want to run.
4. Call other functions from main().

[UlissesOliva]

Best explanation I've ever seen on YouTube about Python.
It's impossible to explain it more clear than that.
Congrats!

[jakobfredriksson]

I've bought quite a few e-courses - not in vain I've learned a lot - but none of them has come even close to explain main like you; rather confused me! As another one wrote, this is pure gold. Now I not only understand the main function I even see how, and why, it will be quite an implement - a great tool - in my current ongoing projects. Thank you so much!

[bradydyson]

Masterfully explained. I loved that you reviewed the learning objectives at the end, but with a more in-depth explanation. Fantastic, easy to understand. Thanks.

[johnjsal]

That was an excellent explanation! I've always wondered whether to put my main code in the conditional or actually use a separate "main" function. Thanks for explaining it!

[JohnBoen]

That was the best explanation for __name__ I have ever heard.

[azr]

dude, these are practices that aren't really spoken about, new programmers are just expected just to do them without any real explanation. Awesome content man

[musicarroll]

Very well constructed and delivered! Bravo!

[kenmurphy]

Best explanation for this I've seen for a long time

[songokussjcz]

Very nice! :-) For beginners, this should be a video to watch as mandatory. Can you extend this and have a best practices, if you want to have a bigger project of, for example, 2-3 files? One with functions, one main. And how to integrate "logging" into them or loading "config" from a xxx.conf file, for example with ConfigParser or ConfigObj?

[TheSophiaLight]

Thank you, you helped me a lot. It was simple, straightforward, concise.

[manuelmarinduque]

Your explanation was very useful for me. Thank u very much!!

[satoshinakamoto]

wow the quality of this video is really good. but i have to watch this video a couple of times to fully understand everything.

[MJF]

There seem to be some variants of this, what is the difference between the following? if __name__ == '__main__': sys.exit(main()); if __name__ == '__main__': exit(main()); if __name__ == '__main__': main()

[riptorforever]

great leasson... pretty balance between deep and short material :) I suggest videos on good practices in different software architectures, as well as an analysis of pros and cons on which to choose given a real case ...

[investandcyclecheap]

This is exactly what I was looking for. Thank you !

[JgORaYa]

Have you done this a different way ?
def number_of_countries():

def main():
print(number_of_countries)
if__name__== “__main__
main()

This is how the teacher wants our lab setup for tuples

[noriotakemoto]

If you have no specific plan to use a part of the functionality by importing the file as a module, is this practice really useful? The length of the script inflated a lot. If you know that you're going to use the functionality, why don't you separate the reusable part into a module and write a small script main.py which imports the module and calls the functions?

[DGDG]

You miss one good practice point...
You may have to name your main file "__main__. py" to be able to have a package to be run from named parent directory and that way no confusion about the first main file to run.

[hifromspace]

You did not show the example of the first rule: put into the class

[bdev]

I have the following questions (FYI: I run pycharm with Python 3 on Windows 10):
the 'python3' command did not work in the pycharm terminal. Instead I had to use 'py'

when I use the 'import' statement, I get the following error:
'import' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.

when I add and run:
if __name__ == "__main__":
main()

I get:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "C:\Users\*\PycharmProjects\Exercises\best_practices.py", line 20, in <module>
main()
NameError: name 'main' is not defined

Could someone explain to me why all these functions do not work as in the video?

Thanks in advance