Demystifying decorators: They don't need to be cryptic

I avoided decorators for so long. First, I pretended they didn't exist. Then, I treated them like a magic spell—I'd use some of the common ones and simply copy how they're used in the documentation. And each time I tried to learn how they work, I'd give up pretty quickly. But eventually, I got there. And once I finally understood how decorators work, my reaction was, "Is that it?" As with many complex topics, the magic goes away once you get it, and what's left makes perfect sense. So, let me take you on a journey similar to the one I took to demystify decorators. I split this decorator quest into seven parts. This article covers Parts 1 and 2. These are the most important parts to understand decorators. Take your time. I'll publish Parts 3 to 7 in a separate article soon. Decorators are powerful for adding reusable functionality to functions without the need to define a new function. You’ll see them often in Python, and you may even need to write your own one at some point. Part ... Read full article.