title: How to find the shortest string in a list in Python
body: <p>This seems like a pretty simple problem, but I'm looking for a short and sweet way of doing it that is still understandable (this isn't code golf).</p>
  
  <p>Given a list of strings, what's the easiest way to find the shortest string?</p>
  
  <p>The way that is most obvious to me is roughly:</p>
  
  <pre><code>l = [...some strings...]
  lens = map(l, len)
  minlen, minind = min(lens)
  shortest = l[minind]
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>but that seems like a lot of code for this problem (at least in python).</p>