Rock, paper, scissors in Python 3

Question

I am new to Python (and to programming). I tried to implement this game in Python and took some help from the code reviews of similar questions posted on this website.

# rock paper scissors game

import random
import sys

choices = ["rock", "paper", "scissors"]

def check_victory(computer_choice, user_choice):
    if user_choice == computer_choice:
        return "tie"
    elif computer_choice == "rock" and user_choice == "paper":
        return "won"
    elif computer_choice == "paper" and user_choice == "scissors":
        return "won"
    elif computer_choice == "scissors" and user_choice == "rock":
        return "won"
    else:
        return "lost"


def play():
    # get input from user
    user_choice = None
    while user_choice not in choices:
        user_choice = input("Enter your choice: ")
        # check if user wants to quit
        if user_choice == "quit":
            sys.exit()

    computer_choice = random.choice(choices)

    # output result
    print(f"Computer choose: {computer_choice}")
    print("You " + check_victory(computer_choice, user_choice), end="\n\n")


if __name__ == "__main__":
    while True:
        play()
```

Answer 1

overall this code looks nice and tidy, and it passes pylint with minimal errors which is a good start!

Some observations:

If you're returning in an if block you don't need to use elif and/or else since on match the code will never continue. I'd probably use or instead of 3 elif statements to avoid having the `return "won" repeated. And maybe carry the result in a variable - this allows you to set a default and avoid one test. So something like:

def check_victory(computer_choice, user_choice):
    result = "lost"
    if user_choice == computer_choice:
        result = "tie"
    if computer_choice == "rock" and user_choice == "paper" or \
       computer_choice == "paper" and user_choice == "scissors" or \
       computer_choice == "scissors" and user_choice == "rock":
        result = "won"
    return result

Another thing might be to replace some of the descriptive comments with docstrings - less important in a small program, but a useful habit to get into for more complex projects later on.

Finally since you're using f-strings for the first print, you could use them for both?

print(f"Computer choose: {computer_choice}")
print(f"You {check_victory(computer_choice, user_choice)}\n\n")

Only other things are 'features' like documenting the choices available, providing 'shortcuts' like r/p/s etc - but those are 'optional extras' and nothing to do with the code quality!