@brendanvos
Your own solution also mutates the original list passed trough the function.

Out of curiousity i tried your solution in Pycharm. I stored [1, 1, 1] in a variable x, stored 10 in varuable y, called the function with (x, y) parameters and after requested a print(x). Both the print(function) and print(x) yielded the same result.

This solution iterates over the counter 3 times

That doesn't change anything, because you're using additionnal if/else logic in the loop, on your side. It's like saying that 3*N is different of N*3. Additionally, python being python, the single loop with more code/branching logic is most likely slower than the 3 passes using builtins.

Yeah but it's not very efficient as it uses for loops. See my solution. BTW I had initially came up with this solution but I improved before submitting.

It is necessary, for example equal_to_24(55, 26, 30, 5) would give with his solution a "It's not possible!", however 26-((55+5)/30) = 24.

I don't see how you will, even if you skip a solution here, if it exists you'll get it later reordered because of parentheses, but feel free to prove me wrong.

right :) i got a bit lucky apparently

Yes, use other language which handles division by zero without error, like JS which will happily evaluate to Infinity :P

As for python how about adding some extra condition to ifs or if you're bothered by multiple trys how about using one.

Hmmm, why aren't builtin functions pythonic ?

Sorry if I'm mistaken, but aren't you also mutating the input (signature) in your solution?

It doesn't matter if this is an acceptable solution for a beginner. The whole point of "best practice", is that it should be the algorithm/approach that a professional programmer would take on production ready code.

@makis73 Please use spoiler flag next time. It's visible in the homepage otherwise.

@bcode The exact error message is this: None should equal 'xakep' (I guess you're doing it in Python, you didn't say) and it means your code is returning None and it should be returning 'xakep' instead.

I got tripped up on "www.xakep.ru"... the test returned "None is not equal to xakep". What the heck? Is it expecting "xakep" or None? I tried both but it gives me the same error regardless. I wish I could view the actual test to determine what it is trying to do.