This challenge write-up first appeared on PyBites.

This week, each one of you has a homework assignment ... - Tyler Durden (Fight club)

Given our RSS feed what tags does PyBites mostly use and which tags should be merged (based on similarity)?

Example output:

$ python tags.py

* Top 10 tags:
python               10
learning             7
tips                 6
tricks               5
github               5
cleancode            5
best practices       5
pythonic             4
collections          4
beginners            4

* Similar tags:
game                 games
challenge            challenges
generator            generators

Get ready

Start coding by forking our challenges repo:

$ git clone https://github.com/pybites/challenges

If you already forked it sync it:

# assuming using ssh key
$ git remote add upstream [email protected]:pybites/challenges.git 
$ git fetch upstream
# if not on master: 
$ git checkout master 
$ git merge upstream/master

Use one of the templates:

$ cd 03
$ cp tags-help.py tags.py
# or:
$ cp tags-nohelp.py tags.py
# code

# run the unittests (optional)
$ python test_tags.py
...
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Ran 3 tests in 0.155s

OK

Requirements / steps

• As we update our blog regularly we provided a recent copy of our feed in the 03 directory: rss.xml. We also provided a copy of tags.html for verification (used by unittests in test_tags.py).

• Both templates provide 3 constants you should use:

  TOP_NUMBER = 10
  RSS_FEED = 'rss.xml'
  SIMILAR = 0.87
  

• Rest is documented in the methods docstrings. Again use tags-help.py if you need more guidance, tags-nohelp.py is for the more experienced and/or if you want more freedom. Same goes for tests: use them if you need them.

• Talking about freedom feel free to use our live feed but then the tests will probably break.

• Hint: for word similarity feel free to use NLTK, or your favorite language processing tool. However, stdlib does provide a nice way to do this. Using this method we came to 0.87 as a threshold to for example not mark 'python' and 'pythonic' as similar.

Good luck!

Remember: there is no best solution, only learning more and better Python.

Enjoy and we're looking forward reviewing on Friday all the cool / creative / Pythonic stuff you come up with.

Have fun!

Again to start coding fork our challenges repo or sync it.

About PyBites Code Challenges

More background in our first challenge article.