[Python-Dev] PEP 8 updates/clarifications

[Ian Bicking]

Barry Warsaw wrote:
> On Fri, 2005-12-09 at 17:19 -0600, Ian Bicking wrote:
> 
> 
>>I personally feel "cls" should be used for classmethods, and not 
>>elsewhere.  Just like I wouldn't like someone using "self" outside of 
>>the first argument of instance methods.  So class_ still would be a good 
>>spelling elsewhere.
> 
> 
> Here's what I've written:
> 
>     Function and method arguments
> 
>       Always use 'self' for the first argument to instance methods.
> 
>       Always use 'cls' for the first argument to class methods.
> 
>       If a function argument's name clashes with a reserved keyword, it is
>       generally better to append a single trailing underscore rather than use
>       an abbreviation or spelling corruption.  Thus "print_" is better than
>       "prnt".

That looks good to me.  Well, I actually try not to use cls as the first 
argument to metaclass's __new__ method, because there's so many classes 
being tossed about at that point that I try to be more explicit.  But I 
don't consider that a common enough issue to be worth mentioning in PEP 8.

>>I looked at that too, but most of these didn't jump out at me.  I'll 
>>copy in the parts that aren't already in PEP 8 that seem possible:
>>
>>   From-imports should follow non-from imports.  Dotted imports should 
>>follow
>>   non-dotted imports.  Non-dotted imports should be grouped by increasing
>>   length, while dotted imports should be grouped roughly alphabetically.
>>
>>This seems too complex to me for PEP 8.
> 
> 
> Really?  ISTR adopting this convention from Guido, but I'm not 100% sure
> about that.  After having used it for several years now, I do really
> like this style, but I'm willing to leave the recommendation out of PEP
> 8.

It seems so exacting to me; stdlib, external modules, internal modules 
seems like enough ordering to me.  If you want to order things more 
exactly, sure, but I don't really see the point personally.  Since I 
can't assume as a reader that imports are ordered in any way I have to 
search to be sure of what's there.  The grouping help me browse, but I'd 
hope that the import list is short enough that I don't need to use 
alphabetization to scan for a module.

-- 
Ian Bicking  /  ianb at colorstudy.com  /  http://blog.ianbicking.org