'Twas the night before Comp-Sci, when all through Python
Not a coder was stirring, not even Ms. Rodge;
The faces were stacked in the totems with care,
In hopes that the TAs soon would grade there;
The students were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sorted lists danced in their heads
And Mama with her Earthquakes, and I with Hangman,
Had just saved our projects for a long code-free nap—
When around the lecture hall there arose such a clatter,
I sprang to my Dell to see what was the matter.
Away to Windows I flew like a flash,
Tore open the website, and pulled up the labs.
All reds down the left of the submit page,
Nearly gave me a stroke and filled me with rage;
When, what to my wondering mind should appear,
But the perfect solution (I'd been nowhere near),
With a little old function, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it would do the trick.
More rapid than eagles the methods they came,
And I whistled, and shouted, and called them by name:
"Now! Index, now! Append, now! Set intersection,
"On! For-loops, on! While-loops, on! List comprehension;
"To the top of the gradebook! To the top, please don't fall!
"Now save my grade! Save my grade! Save my grade all!"
As wet tears that before the wild midterm fly,
When they're short of the median, understandably cry;
So onto the module the code lines they flew,
With a list full of strings—and my function, woo-hoo:
And then in a twinkling, I had on my page
The recursions and regex of the end of my rage.
As I thought in my head, and was debugging around,
Down the page my function sprawled like a crowd:
It was dressed all in brackets, from its def to return,
With a few dictionaries and a couple of words;
A bundle of tuples was flung in a set,
And it looked like my savior, that I would bet:
Its floats—how they twinkled! Its integers: how merry,
Its lists were like roses, its greatness was scary;
Its droll little turtles were arranged in a bow,
How to use them I didn't think I would know;
The lengths of some strings it held tight in its set,
And I'd even used sorting, bubble at that.
It had broad if-clauses, and a nice return segment
That would print when I ran the if __name__ == '__main__': statement:
It was chubby and plump, a great block of code,
And I laughed when I'd done it, though I shouldn't gloat;
A click of the save and a run of some tests
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.
I spoke not a word, but went straight to send it,
And clicked on the tab; then scrolled to submit,
And laying my mouse on the fearsome button
And giving a nod, I prayed it would cut it.
It sprung to results, at the sight I was thrilled,
For there they all stood, just as I'd willed:
And I heard myself say, ere I closed for the night—
Happy Comp-Sci to all, and to all a green night.