Python, for all its power and popularity, has long lacked a form of flow control found in other languages—a way to take a value and match it elegantly against one of a number of possible conditions.

When programming in Python, you may need to ask users for input, then translate that input into lower case letters. For example, a user may enter a text string in all capital letters and you need ...

Python is best thought of as a dynamic but strongly typed language. Types aren’t associated with the names of things but with the things themselves. This makes Python flexible and convenient for ...