This little-known feature in Python could change the entire way you think about programming in a few sentences and help you come up with better programs.

We can thank Tim Peters for putting this easter egg into the language. I’ve benefited from revisiting it over the years, and I think Tim’s words have made me a better programmer.

>>> import this

The Zen of Python, by Tim Peters

Beautiful is better than ugly.
Explicit is better than implicit.
Simple is better than complex.
Complex is better than complicated.
Flat is better than nested.
Sparse is better than dense.
Readability counts.
Special cases aren’t special enough to break the rules.
Although practicality beats purity.
Errors should never pass silently.
Unless explicitly silenced.
In the face of ambiguity, refuse the temptation to guess.
There should be one—and preferably only one—obvious way to do it.
Although that way may not be obvious at first unless you’re Dutch.
Now is better than never.
Although never is often better than right now.
If the implementation is hard to explain, it’s a bad idea.
If the implementation is easy to explain, it may be a good idea.
Namespaces are one honking great idea—let’s do more of those!

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This applies beyond Python to most other programming languages, frameworks, technologies, and even systems. Hopefully, you will be able to apply them and admire their wisdom.