Request a short code review

[james at reggieband.com]

Hi all,

I am moving my server based scripting over to Python and I am
attempting to write more idiomatic python.  I have 8 years
professional programming experience and I am looking to get to a very
high standard of python coding.  As such, I was wondering if it was
appropriate to post code snippets I am not 100% happy with in order to
find a more elegant python way for coding.

Here is a method I came across that I would like to clean up:


def output_random_lesson_of_type(self, type=None):
    """Output a lesson of a specific type - if no type is passed in
then output any type."""
    if type:
        filtered_lessons = filter(lambda x: x["type"] == type,
self.lesson_data["lessons"])
        if filtered_lessons:
            lesson = self.output_random(filtered_lessons)
        else:
            print "Unable to find lessons of type %s." % type
    else:
        lesson = self.output_random(self.lesson_data["lessons"])
    return lesson


Where 'type' is a string, and 'self.lesson_data["lessons"]' is an
array of dictionaries where each item is guaranteed to have string
value with a key 'type'

I am not necessarily looking to make the code shorter or more
functional or anything in particular.  However if you spot something
to improve then I am happy to learn.

Any and all comments appreciated.

Cheers,
James.