Pythonic discoveries, Part 1

The "item1.function(variable)" form in Python was confusing me, until I got something to work in the interpreter. I made a list:

>>> countries = ['USA', 'Russia', 'Cuba', 'Iceland', 'Greenland', 'Atlantis'])

and wanted to add 'France' to it. Trying "append('France')" did not work, as the append() function did not know where to act. However, "countries.append('France')" did work. I realized I had been taking the "x.y" notation as something more complex than it actually is. It can more easily understood after thinking about List Comprehension. List Comprehension takes an expression and applies a for conditional within it, followed by zero or more for and if conditionals. Thus in:

>>> num = [2, 4, 6]
>>> [3*x for x in num]
[6, 12, 18]
>>> [3*x for x in num if x > 3]
[12, 18]

the expression "3*x" is applied to each term x in the list "num".

When something is imported, say a module called "fruit", then one can say "import fruit", and "fruit.peel()" (assuming that peel was defined in "fruit"), the same x.y() form. The "x.y" means: "do, or look for, y in x, or in the context of x."