On Tue, 8 Nov 2011 10:55:40 -0500
Barry Warsaw
In general, one problem with abbreviations is that they are more difficult for non-native English speakers to understand and use. I've often heard such complaints from acquaintances for whom English is not their primary language. The other problem is that while *you* know what the 'q' stands for because you derived it from the underlying concept, someone who stumbles over it in the opposite direction will not know what it means. Maybe they'll search for it, but otherwise, it'll just be a meaningless combination of characters.
Python has always valued readability over writing convenience, and I think this is one of Guido's founding brilliant insights: code is read far more often then it is written. And yet, he managed to find elegant ways of expressing code clearly without being overly verbose.
For these reasons, I strongly believe that this attribute should not be abbreviated.
If the spelled out name is too long, find another one that conveys the same information in fewer characters. Several have been proposed and it's not hard to find others. E.g. __name_details__.
If we go that way, I'd still prefer __qualname__ (but I'm fine with __qname__ :-)). Regards Antoine.