[Python-Dev] Tweaking PEP 8 guidelines for use of leading underscores

[Steven D'Aprano]

On 14/07/13 21:09, Nick Coghlan wrote:

> Slight adjustment to the proposed wording to ensure completely undocumented
> modules are also considered private:

-1 on this adjustment. If somebody cannot be bothered writing a one-line doc string:

"This module is private, don't touch."

then they certainly shouldn't be allowed to use up a public name for a private module. I don't think we should be encouraging more private, undocumented modules. (Documentation is valuable even for private modules.)

I'd go further, and say that no more private modules should be accepted for the std lib unless they have a leading underscore. I suppose for backwards compatibility reasons, we probably can't go through the std lib and rename private modules to make it clear they are private, but we don't have to accept new ones without the underscore.


-- 
Steven