Lesson 20 — Mini project: word counter

Put it together

This project combines three tools you know: split() breaks the text into words, a loop visits each word, and a dict remembers a count per word. The trick is counts.get(w, 0): it returns the current count, or 0 if the word has not been seen yet. Add one to that and store it back under the word.

votes = {}
votes["yes"] = votes.get("yes", 0) + 1
print(votes)  # {'yes': 1}

Why it matters: counting things is the start of almost every analysis — popular products, common errors, top search terms.