Welcome

Bored by all those repositories of source code that you just can’t wrap your brain around? Looking for scripts that run but lack any clear reason why? Hoping that some simple examples will help you understand Python a little better? If you are looking for or would like to share…

• Open Source projects for newbies
• stupid IDLE tricks
• “throw-away” code you didn’t think someone else would like
• classes, modules, and functions you wrote before you learned the “important” stuff
• odd side projects that bring you private joy
• novelties, games, and silly experiments
• programming assignments you wrote versions of in Python

…then, Welcome to Useless Python, a collection of source code, ideas, and other pointless tidbits submitted for your edification and diversion. Please note that we make no express or implied warranties on the code presented here. Stuff could be wrong, and if you can find any blunders, we would really appreciate your letting us know.

Want to prove you’re better than we are by posting code even more useless than ours, or equally useless, but implemented differently? By all means, do! And if you want to submit the next great distributed computing project or a script that proves the Pythagorean theorem, DON’T PANIC, because you won’t be rejected for not being *useless enough* or anything.

You are invited to play with the source code you find here. See if you can make these scripts do different things, do the same things better, or explore the same ideas in different ways. Then email us what you’ve done so we can share it with future visitors. And if you have some source code you can contribute, please do (with our thanks).

One of the best ways to learn any programming language is to find some source code that does something and play with it to make it do something else. The source code here may be used for this purpose, as well as a source for interesting examples of how to do different things. If you wonder how to do something, check to see if we have it here. If we don’t have it, and you figure it out, please send it our way.

If you have been looking for some source code you can wrap your brain around, you have come to the right place. The programs here demonstrate simple concepts and how to apply them in a really interesting variety of ways. If you ever thought you had to have an advanced degree to understand computer programming, spend a little time with Useless Python and see that it can be different, simpler, and more fun!