My entry to Google's PyCon Quiz: Count and sum all positive palindromic numbers up to a googol

google_pycon_quiz.py

def googol():
    def palindromes(end):
        for odd_length in (True, False):
            left = 0
            last_palindrome = 0
            while last_palindrome < end:
                left += 1
                left_str = str(left)
                right_str = left_str[::-1]
                if odd_length:
                    left_str = left_str[:-1]
                last_palindrome = int('{0}{1}'.format(left_str, right_str))
                yield last_palindrome

    count_palindromes = 0
    sum_palindromes = 0
    for palindrome in palindromes(10**100):
        count_palindromes += 1
        sum_palindromes += palindrome
    return (sum_palindromes, count_palindromes)