advice on this little script

[John Salerno]

My first project when I started learning C# was to make a little timer
to tell me when my laundry was done :) and I thought it would be fun to
convert this to Python. Here's what I came up with after much struggling
with the Timer class from the threading module -- as you can see, I
abandoned it for the sleep() function from timer.

Please let me know if this is a good (i.e. Pythonic) way of doing this,
and if it can be improved (although I don't need anything fancier than
this basic functionality).
---------------------
from time import sleep

minutes = input('Enter the number of minutes to wait: ')

for x in range(minutes):
sleep(1.0)
minutes -= 1
print minutes, 'minutes remaining.'
---------------------

And if you are interested, here is the original C# code in all its
monstrous glory. I can't believe the difference!
----------------------------
using System;
using System.Collecti ons.Generic;
using System.Text;
using System.Threadin g;

namespace MyTimer
{
class Timer
{
static void Main()
{
Console.Write(" Enter the number of minutes to wait: ");
int iTime = Int32.Parse(Con sole.ReadLine() );
Thread.Sleep(60 000);

for (int i = iTime - 1; i > 0; i--)
{
Console.WriteLi ne("{0} minute(s) remaining.", i);
Thread.Sleep(60 000);
}

Console.Write(" {0} minutes have elapsed.", iTime);

for (int i = 3; i > 0; i--)
{
Console.Beep();
Thread.Sleep(10 00);
}
}
}
}
--------------------------

8 lines vs. 31 lines! :)

[John Salerno]

John Salerno wrote:

sleep(1.0)

Heh heh, that was for testing. Obviously it should read 60.0 (is a float
necessary at all?).

[James Stroud]

John Salerno wrote:

My first project when I started learning C# was to make a little timer
to tell me when my laundry was done :) and I thought it would be fun to
convert this to Python. Here's what I came up with after much struggling
with the Timer class from the threading module -- as you can see, I
abandoned it for the sleep() function from timer.

Please let me know if this is a good (i.e. Pythonic) way of doing this,
and if it can be improved (although I don't need anything fancier than
this basic functionality).
---------------------
from time import sleep

minutes = input('Enter the number of minutes to wait: ')

for x in range(minutes):
sleep(1.0)
minutes -= 1
print minutes, 'minutes remaining.'
---------------------

Very nice, but maybe

....
sleep(60.0)

This corrects for the number of seconds in a minute.

James

--
James Stroud
UCLA-DOE Institute for Genomics and Proteomics
Box 951570
Los Angeles, CA 90095

http://www.jamesstroud.com/

[BartlebyScrivener]

What about a console beep? How do you add that?

rpd

[Grant Edwards]

On 2006-03-09, John Salerno <jo******@NOSPA Mgmail.com> wrote:

from time import sleep

minutes = input('Enter the number of minutes to wait: ')

for x in range(minutes):
sleep(1.0)
minutes -= 1
print minutes, 'minutes remaining.'

for x in range(minutes,0 ,-1):
sleep(60.0)
print minutes, 'minutes remaining'

--
Grant Edwards grante Yow! My EARS are GONE!!
at
visi.com

[John Salerno]

James Stroud wrote:

Very nice, but maybe

...
sleep(60.0)

This corrects for the number of seconds in a minute.

James

Thanks! And yeah, I fixed that little issue. If only laundry could be
done that fast. :)

[John Salerno]

BartlebyScriven er wrote:

What about a console beep? How do you add that?

rpd

Ooh, good point! I forgot about the most important part, otherwise I'd
never know it was done and someone would steal my clothes! :)

Time to do some library reference research....

[John Salerno]

Grant Edwards wrote:

On 2006-03-09, John Salerno <jo******@NOSPA Mgmail.com> wrote:

from time import sleep

minutes = input('Enter the number of minutes to wait: ')

for x in range(minutes):
sleep(1.0)
minutes -= 1
print minutes, 'minutes remaining.'

for x in range(minutes,0 ,-1):
sleep(60.0)
print minutes, 'minutes remaining'

Nice! Cross off another line! I feel like Hemingway. :)

[John Salerno]

John Salerno wrote:

from time import sleep .... sleep(1.0)

Very picky point, but I'd like to know what others think of this. Should
I import as above, or should I do this:

import time
.....
time.sleep(60.0 ) ???

I think the 'from time import sleep' looks cleaner, because I'm only
taking what I need (is an import any more expensive than this from?),
but I also feel like the 'time.sleep' syntax is much more
self-describing and better to read than just 'sleep'.

So what do you guys think between these two choices?

[Ben Cartwright]

BartlebyScriven er wrote:

What about a console beep? How do you add that?

rpd

Just use ASCII code 007 (BEL/BEEP):

import sys
sys.stdout.writ e('\007')

Or if you're on Windows, use the winsound standard module.

--Ben