[comeonseriously]

>Yup. This looks awful — and is error prone and slow and probably wins some kind of award for being unPythonic — but it works. And I wrote it and I can read it. We can improve tomorrow.

That's the key takeaway. Write it once to get it working and understand how to solve the problem, then write it better.

"Hence plan to throw one away; you will, anyhow." - Fred Brooks