Weekly Python Learning Recap - Week 3

Continuing a set of journal entries where I’m working through Automate the Boring Stuff with Python to strengthen my logic and programming skills. Been in management for close to 6 years now and I’m beginning to feel my logic skills atrophy. I’m hoping that by working through this book on a weekly basis while practicing Leetcode-style questions will help sharpen those skills to the point of where I was 5 years ago.

I plan to keep a log here and continue to learn in public. I’ll be tracking the progress this Github repo.

🗓️ Dates Covered:

• 2025-05-05 - 2025-05-09

📚 What I Studied

• Chapter(s) covered: 6
• Concepts I focused on: String manipulation, dictionary, and lists
• Challenges or problems attempted:
  • Nested dictionary and list logic
  • String normalization and matching
  • Structured user input + CLI design
  • Reading and writing JSON files
  • Defensive programming (e.g. checking for valid categories)
• What I built:
  • Search spells by name or description (case-insensitive)
  • List spells by category with emoji decoration
  • Remove spells by category and index
  • Full JSON file persistence using json.dump() and json.load()

🧠 What I Learned

• Key takeaways:
  • Looping over dict.items() for nested access
  • .lower().strip().title() for robust input handling
  • Persisitence is key
  • Defensive programming is important

🔁 Repeated Patterns or Skills Practiced

• Looping through dictionaries with key, value iterators in loops
• The importance of defensive coding while using dict.get() instead of directly accessing the key-value through dict[key]

⚔️ Challenges I Faced

• Problem(s) that tripped me up:

  • Navigating nested dictionary/list structures while building the search tool
  • Tracking where to validate user input for robustness
  • Refactoring logic to avoid redundant checks or overwritten output

• How I solved or reframed it:

  • Log, log, log to the console to see what’s going on in my code

✅ Wins of the Week

• Completed a real, interactive Python project that feels like a tool, not a toy
• Rebooted my learning momentum after getting sick last week

🔮 What’s Next

• Add OpenAI integration to generate_description() (LLM description generation)
• Extend CLI with:
  • Edit spell description
  • Export all spells as a printable text file
  • Categorize spells by power level (stretch)
• Start Chapter 8 (File I/O deep dive + structured formats)
• Continue light daily Leetcode-style problem solving

🧾 Favorite Snippet of the Week

def categorize_spells(spells):
    categorized_spells = {}
    for spell in spells:
        spell_name, spell_category = spell.split(':')
        spell_category = spell_category.strip().title()
        categorized_spells.setdefault(spell_category, [])
        categorized_spells[spell_category].append(spell_name)
        categorized_spells[spell_category] = sorted(
            categorized_spells[spell_category])
    return categorized_spells