[Python-Dev] req: Software Carpentry / coding standards

[Greg Stein]

On Tue, 6 Jun 2000, Greg Wilson wrote:
> > > Tim Peters:
> > > http://www.python.org/doc/essays/styleguide.html
> 
> > On Tue, 6 Jun 2000, Christopher Petrilli wrote:
> > The only thing that might be added (I haven't looked in a while, but
> > didn't see it last time I did), is some naming convention issues.  I
> > follow pretty standard Smalltalk guidelines:
> > 
> >        - No '_', use camelCase for seps
> 
> I know this is become common practice, but I've been told by two different
> HCI specialists that studies have shown CamelBackNotation to be harder for
> non-native speakers to read than underbar_separated_text, particularly
> when acronyms are part of the name.  If anyone has a pointer to an
> original reference for this, I'd be grateful.

Actually, the "camel case" for identifiers is not a standard Python style.
I've seen three forms:

- no separator or case usage (e.g. getattr())
- mixed case
- lower case with underscores

Chris' other points: upper-case-initial classes and lower-case-initial
methods are *definitely* standard.

Globals are a bit different. I don't think it is standard to capitalize
them as Chris mentioned (they might look like classes in that case). There
isn't much of a standard there.

Definitely another point is the use of "_" for the initial character to
signify "private -- don't touch"

Cheers,
-g

-- 
Greg Stein, http://www.lyra.org/