Recipes: Conditional logic

Short, task-focused how-tos for the kinds of conditional work that come up over and over. Each recipe assumes you already know the basics — if a term surprises you, the Learn section is one click away.

Unlike the tutorials, the recipes don't have a recommended order. Pick whichever is useful right now.

Recipes in this guide

• Use guard clauses to flatten nested conditions — early returns and raised exceptions as a way to keep the main logic at one indentation level.
• Choose between if/elif chains, dict dispatch, and match/case — three legitimate ways to branch, and the judgement call for which fits when.
• Avoid common conditional mistakes — == vs is, the if x == True antipattern, truthy-vs-is None, the chained-comparison surprise, and other footguns.