This is probably a very straight forward question but would love a simple explanation as to the why?
The below code requires a list in order to obtain a random card.
import random
card = random.choice (["hearts", "clubs", "frogs"])
I am puzzled as to why it requires a list and why I cannot do this.
import = random
card = random.choice("hearts" , "clubs", "frogs")
I'm fine that I can't do it I just would like to know why?
Because of Murphy's law: anything that can be done the wrong way will be done the wrong way by someone, some day. Your suggested API would require
random.choice(*lst)
when the values to choose from are in the list (or other sequence) lst. When someone writes
random.choice(lst)
instead, they would always get lst back instead of an exception. The Python principle that "explicit is better than implicit" then dictates that we have to type a few extra characters.
(Admitted, the result of random.choice("foobar") pointed out by others may be surprising to a beginner, but once you get used to the language you'll appreciate the way that works.)