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Modules (deeper)

🟦🐍 Technique Card: Importing and Using Modules in Python (deeper)

🌟 What You’ll Explore

Learn how to import a sack full of ready-made code (called a module) so you can use cool tools like picking a random item from a list.

🎒 What’s a Module?

A module is like a sack of code.

Imagine a sack filled with helpful tools that someone else made for you — tools that help your program do smart things without you having to build them from scratch.

One sack might help with maths.
Another might help with telling the time.
And one fun sack is called random — it’s full of tools for picking things randomly!

🎯 Why Use a Sack (Module)?

  • It saves time.
  • It gives your program superpowers!
  • You don’t have to build everything yourself.

🪄 How Do I Open a Sack?

You use the import command:

import random

This means:
🗣️ “Hey Python, bring me the sack called random!”

Now you can use anything inside the sack.

🧺 How to Grab a Tool from the Sack

Let’s say we want to pick a random name from a list:

name = random.choice(["Ava", "Ziggy", "Sky"])

Here’s what’s happening:

  • random = the sack
  • choice = a tool inside the sack
  • The dot (.) joins them: random.choice

💡 You can think of the dot like a possessive apostrophe:

“The choice that belongs to random”

Just like:

“Ziggy’s hat” = the hat that belongs to Ziggy

random.choice() = the choice tool that belongs to the random sack

🛠️ What’s Inside These Sacks?

Each sack (module) contains code: clever instructions written by other programmers.

We don’t need to know exactly how that code works to use it — just like we can use a calculator without knowing how all the buttons are wired inside.

🚪 Can We Import Just One Tool?

Yes! But it’s a bit like pulling just one thing out of the sack and leaving the rest behind:

from random import choice

Now you can write:

name = choice(["Storm", "Flame", "Frost"])

That works, but sometimes it’s nicer to keep using the sack so we know where the tool came from. It is more clear when we have lots of code - if we have choice() it is not so clear but if we use random.choice() it is more clear that the choice() code came from the random module (sack!)

🧠 Quick Recap

  • A module is like a sack full of code.
  • We use import to bring the sack into our project.
  • We use the dot (.) to take tools out of the sack.
  • random.choice() means: “Use the choice tool from the random sack!”