ten small Python programs - comp.lang.python

Message from discussion ten small Python programs

Steven Bethard

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More options May 27 2007, 12:33 pm

Newsgroups: comp.lang.python

From: Steven Bethard <steven.beth...@gmail.com>

Date: Sat, 26 May 2007 20:33:04 -0600

Local: Sun, May 27 2007 12:33 pm

Subject: Re: ten small Python programs

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Paul McGuire wrote:
> I ***love*** this "10 Little Programs" idea! As soon as I get a
> breathing space, I'm going to add a "10 Little Parsers" page to the
> pyparsing wiki!

> On May 26, 2:38 pm, Steven Bethard <steven.beth...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> <nitpick>
>> Though the code should probably follow PEP 8 guidelines, e.g.
>> under_scores instead of camelCase for object and method names:

>> http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0008/
>> </nitpick>

> Really? Underscore-separated words preferred over camel case? What
> is the rationale for this?

Rationale? It's a style guide. There is no rationale. ;-)

> If we want to just say "well, PEP-8 says such and such," I think this
> is an area where the thinking has possibly evolved since 2001.

I really don't think so. If anything, it's gotten more strict. PEP 8
used to allow either camelCase or under_scores. Now it only allows the
latter.

> I guess pyparsing with its mixedCase functions and attributes is
> doomed for the Dunce Corner. Too bad for BeautifulSoup, cElementTree,
> and wxPython that are also at variance with this canon of Python
> coding style.

Many (if not all) of these modules were written before the most recent
incarnation of PEP 8. Thus, they fall under the second good reason "to
break a particular rule":

(2) To be consistent with surrounding code that also breaks it

Of course, for new code, such as that in this thread, there's no reason
to break from the PEP 8 guidelines.

STeVe

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