Hangman game, written after taking a Python course

Question

I have recently finished a course on Python 3 and I really learned a lot, but every time I write a script, it is messy and I often feel like there must be shorter, more efficient ways to write and structure my scripts.

So my question is: How could I rewrite the below script to be shorter and more efficient, and what advice would you guys give me to improve my coding skills in general (maybe a way of thinking about the program that will make it easier to define the structure of what my script should look like...)

I am really enthused about the possibilities that coding bring and I would really like to improve, so don't hesitate to be harsh with your comments ;)

Here below is one of the scripts I wrote. This one is a hangman game: (The word list for the game are being picked from a .txt file that lives in the same directory as my script)

import string
import random


class Main:

    def __init__(self):
        self.place_holder = []
        self.wrong_guesses = 10
        self.guesses = []
        with open('./words.txt', mode='r') as f:
            self.word = random.choice(f.readlines())
            self.word = self.word.strip()
            print(self.word, end='')
            return self.place_holders()

    def place_holders(self):
        # creates the placeholders for the word
        for char in self.word:
            if char != " ":
                self.place_holder.append(' _ ')
            elif char == " ":
                self.place_holder.append('   ')
        print("".join(self.place_holder))  # prints initial placeholder
        return self.is_letter()

    @staticmethod
    def guess():
        # Prompts the user for a guess
        while True:
            guessed_letter = input(str('Give a guess: ')).lower()
            if guessed_letter not in string.ascii_lowercase or len(guessed_letter) > 1:
                print(
                    'You have inputted more than one character or the character entered was not recognized.\nPlease try again.')
            else:
                break
        return guessed_letter

    def is_letter(self):
        # finds out if the letter belongs to the word, and if so, places it on the right placeholder
        guessed_letter = self.guess()
        if guessed_letter in self.word and guessed_letter not in self.guesses:
            for i in range(len(self.word)):
                if guessed_letter == self.word[i]:
                    self.place_holder[i] = f' {self.word[i]} '
        elif guessed_letter in self.guesses:
            print('You already said that..\n')
        else:
            self.wrong_guesses -= 1
            print(f'Sorry, missed.\nYou have {self.wrong_guesses} guesses left.\n')

        self.guesses.append(guessed_letter)
        print("".join(self.place_holder))  # prints the updated placeholder
        return self.is_over()

    def is_over(self):
        # Checks if the players has guessed the full word or if the player ran out of guesses
        if ' _ ' in self.place_holder and self.wrong_guesses > 0:
            self.is_letter()
        elif ' _ ' in self.place_holder and self.wrong_guesses == 0:
            print(f'Sorry, Game Over!\nThe word to guess was: {self.word}')
            self.play_again()
        else:
            self.play_again()

    @staticmethod
    def play_again():
        # Prompts the player if he wants to play again or not
        if input('Do you want to play again? (y/n): ').lower().startswith('y'):
            Main()
        else:
            print('Fair enough.. Thanks for playing!')
            quit()


Main()

Answer 1

Your code structure is one of infinite recursion. Main() calls placeholder(), which calls is_letter() which calls is_over() which calls is_letter() (recursive), or play_again() which calls Main() (recursive)! Eventually, you will end up with a Stack Overflow if you play long enough!

What you want is a loop. Two loops, actually. Your program should be structured to operate something like:

play_again = True
while play_again:
    # initialize game state
    while not solved and guesses_left:
        # get guess
        # update game state
    play_again = ask_play_again()

No recursive calls are necessary.

---

You read all lines of the file to choose a random puzzle. When you play again, you again read all lines in the file. Perhaps you could read and store all the puzzles, and each time a game is played, you just select one randomly from the list.

---

Your placeholders are complicated, 3 character entities. They could just be single characters, and spaces could be added during printing.

self.placeholder = [ "_" if ch != " " else " "  for ch in self.word ]

To print:

print("".join(f" {ch} " for ch in self.placeholder))

Or simply:

print("", "  ".join(self.placeholder))

---

You should allow for punctuation in the puzzles. Like spaces, these should be directly shown, not converted to underscores.

 _  _  _  _  _  ’  _     _  _  _  _

Answer 2

Don't unconditionally call Main() from global scope - if someone else imports your file, you want to leave it up to them what should be executed. This is why you should use the if __name__ == '__main__' pattern that we see so often elsewhere.

self.guesses shouldn't be a list. Since you need fast lookup, even though it won't make a noticeable difference, you should be using a set.