Question

Exercise 3.4 people function

I have spent a fair amount of time on trying to get this function to work and now it seems as if it does. It returns the correct answer but I am not convinced that it is the best way to implement it.

def people(age):
n1=[]
for name, xxx in combined_dict.iteritems():
if age==xxx:
n1.append(name)
return n1

Thanks

Answer 1

Like many of the exercises, insufficient thought was given when it was designed. I used similar technique and thought, too, that it was just plain silly to do it that way.

Answer 2

Thanks Screech,

Answer 3

We need to remember that these exercises are not always going to be the optimal way to do something but rather are designed to test what w know about something. In this case the test its about using dictionaries.

How would you improve the way the question is asked?

Answer 4

I'm in the MOOC "Gentle Python" course. Often I'm torn on how to do these lessons. I assume we should try to become deeply familiar with Python basics as much as possible.
Thus, I generally try to complete these MIT assignments using what we've learned in Gentle Python rather than jumping ahead to investigate new Python techniques. For example, I notice that frankdpnw used "iteritems()" to write code, which is ahead of me. I was able to finish the assignment without using that function but at the same time I read about it in Python documents and practiced using it just to have an understanding.