PEP 20

>>> import this

In June 1999 Tim Peters posted 19 short lines to the Python mailing list. They were meant half as a joke. A quarter of a century later they're still the closest thing Python has to a constitution. He said there were 20 aphorisms, but left the last one for Guido to fill in. It's still blank.

>>> import this

The Zen quiz

A bit of everything: real-or-fake aphorisms, missing words and code that breaks the rules.

import zen_of_you

Everyone deserves 19 aphorisms. Type a name (yours, your cat's, your team's) and get a Zen that follows Tim's original line by line. The same name always gives the same Zen.

Name

>>> import zen_of_you Type a name above.

The secret of this.py

In autumn 2001 the PythonLabs team ran a slogan contest for the IPC10 conference T-shirt. About 500 entries came in. Barry Warsaw picked "import this", then realised it ought to actually work. The module was smuggled into Python 2.2.1 with its text encoded in ROT13 (every letter shifted 13 places), so nobody could spoil the joke by reading the source. Here is what this.py really contains:

Try your own ROT13