Chapter 15. Modules

This is the last chapter that talks about ways of collecting things together. We have already learned about lists, functions, and objects. In this chapter, we’ll learn about modules. In the next chapter, we’ll use a module called Pygame to start drawing some graphics.

What’s a module?

A module is a piece or part of something. We say something is modular if it comes in pieces or you can easily separate it into pieces. LEGO blocks might be the perfect example of something modular. You can take a bunch of different pieces and build many different things with them.

In Python, modules are smaller pieces of a bigger program. Each module, or piece, is a separate file on your hard drive. You can take a big program and split it up into more than one module, or file. Or you can go the other way—start with one small module and keep adding pieces to make a big program.

Why use modules?

So why go to all the trouble of splitting our program up into smaller pieces, when we’re going to need them all to make the program work? Why not just leave everything in one big file?

There are a few reasons:

Buckets of blocks

How do we create modules?

How do we use modules?

Namespaces

Standard modules

What did you learn?

Test your knowledge

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