The Zen of Python (PEP 20)

The Zen of Python is a collection of 19 “guiding principles” for writing computer programs that influence the design of the Python programming language.
Python code that aligns with these principles is often referred to as “Pythonic”.

― Wikipedia

These principles, written as aphorisms, were composed by Tim Peters.

Why this matter?

It helps you write code that is clean, maintainable, and robust.
It guides you to make choices that benefit both you and anyone else who interacts with your code, leading to better software overall.

Principles

Beautiful is better than ugly.
Explicit is better than implicit.
Simple is better than complex.
Complex is better than complicated.
Flat is better than nested.
Sparse is better than dense.
Readability counts.
Special cases aren’t special enough to break the rules.
Although practicality beats purity.
Errors should never pass silently.
Unless explicitly silenced.
In the face of ambiguity, refuse the temptation to guess.
There should be one– and preferably only one –obvious way to do it.
Although that way may not be obvious at first unless you’re Dutch.
Now is better than never.
Although never is often better than right now.
If the implementation is hard to explain, it’s a bad idea.
If the implementation is easy to explain, it may be a good idea.
Namespaces are one honking great idea – let’s do more of those!

Easter Egg in Python

The original text is encrypted using a Caesar cipher in the Python repository.
You can display it with:

import this
print(this.s) # Encrypted version

Song by Barry Warsaw

You can even listen to a song that uses The Zen of Python as its lyrics.

Comics by Karlisson M. Bezerra

In the post published on hacktoon.com, titled The Zen of Python Illustrated, you can find an interpretation of the principles in the form of comics.