Beginner question

[Roy Smith]

In article <IKKdneVcX7wyMjDMnZ2dnUVZ_sSdnZ2d at giganews.com>,
 Larry Hudson <orgnut at yahoo.com> wrote:

> def partdeux():
>      print('A man lunges at you with a knife!')
>      option = input('Do you DUCK or PARRY?  ').lower()
>      success = random.randint(0, 1)
>      if success:
>          if option == 'duck':
>              print('He tumbles over you')
>              return
>          if option == 'parry':
>              print('You trip him up')
>              return
>      print('He stabs you')

I'm going to suggest another possible way to organize this.  I'm not 
claiming it's necessarily better, but as this is a learning exercise, 
it's worth exploring.  Get rid of all the conditional logic and make 
this purely table-driven:

responses = {(0, 'duck'): "He tumbles over you",
             (0, 'parry'): "You trip him up",
             (1, 'duck'): "He stabs you",
             (1, 'parry'): "He stabs you",
            }

and then....

def partdeux():
     print('A man lunges at you with a knife!')
     option = input('Do you DUCK or PARRY?  ').lower()
     success = random.randint(0, 1)
     print responses[(success, option)]

Consider what happens when the game evolves to the point where you have 
four options (DUCK, PARRY, RETREAT, FEINT), multiple levels of success, 
and modifiers for which hand you and/or your opponent are holding your 
weapons in?  Trying to cover all that with nested logic will quickly 
drive you insane.