Simple age converter

Question

I want you to pick my code apart and give me some feedback on how I could make it better or more simple. In my opinion this is the best code I have written, being that I'm new to programming. The program is a basic "converter" that has the user input his/her age and it tells how many days, hours, and minutes the user has been alive. Let me know what you think!

import time
import sys

def name():
    name = input("What is your name? ")
    while name.isdigit():
        print("Make sure to enter an actual name.")
        name = input("What is your name? ")
    return name

def user_input():
    while True:
        age = input("What is your age? ")
        try:
            return int(age)
            break
        except ValueError:
            try:
                return float(age)
                break
            except ValueError:
                print("Make sure to enter a real age.")

def again():
    while True:
        again = input("Play again? Yes/No ").lower()
        if again == "no":
            sys.exit(0)
        elif again == "yes":
            break
        else:
            print("That was not an option.")

while True:
    the_name = name()
    age = user_input()
    Days = age * 365
    Hours = Days * 24
    Minutes = Hours * 60
    print("Ok {}, I have your results.".format(the_name))
    time.sleep(2)
    print("If you are {} years of age....".format(age))
    time.sleep(2)
    print("You are {} days old.".format(Days))
    time.sleep(2)
    print("You are {} hours old.".format(Hours))
    time.sleep(2)
    print("You are {} minutes old!".format(Minutes))

    again()

NOTE: If you make a change, please explain to me why and how it works in the most simple way you can, so I understand it better.

Answer 1

This:

def name():
    name = input("What is your name? ")
    while name.isdigit():
        print("Make sure to enter an actual name.")
        name = input("What is your name? ")
    return name

means that "1" is not a real name, but "a" and "17xy" are. I think it might be better to use some kind of a regular expression, or - better - just accept whatever nonempty string the user chooses to give you as his/her name.

In your user_input(), you try to convert the input to int, and - if that fails - to float. Why not straight to float? I don't see how is 17 better than 17.0.

Also, in the same function, your break statements will never execute, as the return statement terminates the function.

I think it'd be a much better program if the input was date of birth. Do you know your current age, as anything more precise than "between x and x+1 years old"?

Answer 2

Why not ask for a birth date (and time?) so you can calculate the real values. You will need to import datetime.

import time
import sys
from datetime import datetime

This function is OK, though I am not sure whether your isdigit test will catch many mistakes

def get_name():
    name = raw_input("What is your name? ")
    while name.isdigit():
        print("Make sure to enter an actual name.")
        name = raw_input("What is your name? ")
    return name

Your function name, user_input() is too vague. I have changed it to get_date_of_birth() to make it more obvious what's going on Your original may be better named as get_age() for example I have also simplified the logic, your return statement is enough, no need to break I have also converted the input to a date using datetime.strptime()

def get_date_of_birth():
    date_string = raw_input("What's your date of birth? ")
    while True:
        try:
            return datetime.strptime(date_string, '%d/%m/%Y')
        except ValueError:
            date_string = raw_input("What's your date of birth? (format: dd/mm/yyyy) ")

Your again() function is great. I have simplified by returning a boolean value from the function which allows me to use it differently in the main logic below. I have also added single character options using 'in'

def again():
    while True:
        again = raw_input("Play again? (Yes/No) ").lower()
        if again in ["no", "n"]:
            return False
        elif again in ["yes", "y"]:
            return True
        else:
            print("That was not an option.")

I have moved the main game flow into a function. Here I have changed it to use a datetime as the user's date of birth.

def play():
    name = get_name()
    dob = get_date_of_birth()
    age = datetime.today() - dob
    print("Ok {}, I have your results.".format(name))
    time.sleep(1)
    print("You are {} years and {} days old....".format(age.days // 365, age.days % 365))
    time.sleep(1)
    print("You are {} days old.".format(age.days))
    time.sleep(1)
    print("You are {} hours old.".format(int(age.total_seconds() // (60*60))))
    time.sleep(1)
    print("You are {} minutes old!".format(int(age.total_seconds() // 60)))

The main logic is reduced to a simple, obvious loop. Code that executes should be protected behind if name == "main" so it doesn't run on import.

if __name__ == "__main__":
    play()
    while again():
        play()

I'm using raw_input() rather than input() as my code is python 2.7. I guess you are using python 3.