Tried using Python lists instead of dictionaries for a project and it bit me hard

So last weekend I was coding a little app to track my game collection. I had to decide between using lists or dictionaries to store the data. I figured lists were simpler so I went with that. Big mistake. After like 3 hours of writing loops to find specific games by name I realized dictionaries would have just let me look stuff up instantly. My code turned into a mess of nested loops and I ended up rewriting the whole thing Sunday morning. Now I get why everyone says pick the right structure from the start. Has anyone else wasted a whole afternoon on a dumb data structure pick?

2 comments

2 Comments

andrew8541mo ago

But weren't you just overcomplicating things? Lists are fine if you plan your data access patterns ahead of time instead of just winging it.

olivia_murphy1mo ago

oh man, I've been there. spent a whole saturday building a to-do list app with lists and ended up writing a custom search function with like 14 nested loops just to find items by date. my code looked like spaghetti thrown at a wall. dictionaries would've solved it in one line. sometimes you gotta learn the hard way that convenience beats simplicity every damn time.