A few days ago I was browsing my Gist collection when I came across a pair of old Python codes, Python 2 to be precise. I wrote these lines 7 years ago when I was recently introduced to Python by a friend of mine, Rodrigo Delduca. So I thought “Why not review them?", and here we are.

Before we start let me tell that both scripts are about game development, more precisely procedural terrain generation. Let’s take a look at them.

Spiral Flood

# Don't work =( tiles = [] def spiralFlood ( tiles , sx , sy , K , m ): x = y = 0 dx = 0 dy = - 1 i = 0 while i < m and i < K * K : if ( - K / 2 < x <= K / 2 ) and ( - K / 2 < y <= K / 2 ): if 0 <= x + sx < 32 and 0 <= y + sy < 32 : # print (x + sx, y + sy) tiles [ x + sx ][ y + sy ] = "#" i += 1 if x == y or ( x < 0 and x == - y ) or ( x > 0 and x == 1 - y ): dx , dy = - dy , dx x , y = x + dx , y + dy return tiles for i in range ( 32 ): r = [] for j in range ( 32 ): r . append ( "." ) tiles . append ( r ) tiles = spiralFlood ( tiles , 15 , 15 , 32 , 15 ) for k in range ( 32 ): print tiles [ i ]

If I recall correctly, this was a test of an algorithm that creates masses of water, something like lakes, based on an initial point in a 2D grid. Let’s analyze the code:

There is a typo in the first line, I know. And sure, the code doesn’t work as expected.

It is poorly modular, has lots of meaningless single letter variables and magic numbers. These things are ok in an experimental code, but they turn the code hard to read and understand.

The spiralFlood function isn’t snake cased. If you already know Python well you should know about the Python Style Guide, the PEP 8.

function isn’t snake cased. If you already know Python well you should know about the Python Style Guide, the PEP 8. The variable tiles is shadowed inside the function. Shadowing also makes the code harder to read and understand.

Map Generation

# -*- coding: utf-8 -*- # -- MAPGEN.PY -- import sys import math import random class Map : # consts _FOUR_DIRECTIONS = [( 1 , 0 ), ( - 1 , 0 ), ( 0 , 1 ), ( 0 , - 1 )] def __init__ ( self , width , height ): self . _width = width self . _height = height self . _data = [[ '#' for x in xrange ( width )] for y in xrange ( height )] self . _visited = [] for y in xrange ( self . _height ): for x in xrange ( self . _width ): self . _visited . append (( x , y )) def flood ( self , x , y , cx , cy , max_distance ): self . _data [ y ][ x ] = '.' self . _visited . remove (( x , y )) for t in self . _FOUR_DIRECTIONS : nx , ny = x + t [ 0 ], y + t [ 1 ] if self . _visited . count (( nx , ny )) == 0 : continue distance = abs ( nx - cx ) + abs ( ny - cy ) if distance > max_distance : continue probability = 1 - ( distance / max_distance ) if random . random () <= probability : self . flood ( nx , ny , cx , cy , max_distance ) def spawnWater ( self , seeds , max_distance ): for i in xrange ( seeds ): k = random . randint ( 0 , len ( self . _visited ) - 1 ) t = self . _visited [ k ] x , y = t [ 0 ], t [ 1 ] self . flood ( x , y , x , y , max_distance * 1.0 ) def printMap ( self ): for y in xrange ( self . _height ): for x in xrange ( self . _width ): sys . stdout . write ( self . _data [ y ][ x ]) sys . stdout . write ( '

' ) map = Map ( 80 , 32 ) map . spawnWater ( 16 , 10 ) map . printMap ()

Looks better, right? The objective here is the same as the previous code. It generates a random output every time you run it, something like the following image.

Confusing, I know. Let’s abstract things here: # represents land and . water. Now, taking a close look in the code:

It is more pythonic, with list comprehensions, tuples, and a class.

Still not following the PEP 8. You can see I was using a mix of C# and C++ code style. Both languages were my background.

Every method has a clear job and a good name. This is good.

After all, these scripts don’t look so bad as I imagined. Of course, if I was writing this code today I would change a couple of things like writing the code with Python 3 and using a better code styling. And that’s exactly what we get out of when we review old code: a chance to look back and see what we’ve learned and how we evolved as a developer. And that is all for today. See you next time.