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

[Chris McDonough]

On Tue, 2013-07-16 at 12:34 +1000, Nick Coghlan wrote:

> How do get from "If this doesn't apply to a module, just add something
> like 'This is an internal API' or 'This module includes internal APIs,
> consult the documentation for the public API' to the module docstring"
> to "updating 500k lines of public code"? The version in Barry's email
> that you replied to has that escape clause in it, so the fact it was
> missing from my original text doesn't justify this reaction.

I may be wrong, but as I see it this is a decision to help (although
only conditionally!) a theoretical IDE user or an agressive user of
dir() at the expense of effectively either 1) making existing
maintainers revisit existing code, or 2 ) making maintainers continually
explain to users that their codebase is not "PEP8 compliant".

> P.S. Note that, while I'm trying to account for it in this particular
> case, we're never going to let the fact that many people misuse PEP 8
> by considering it as a holy standard that should be followed by all
> Python code everywhere stop us from including updates that are valid
> specifically for the standard library.

Fair enough, technically.  But historical reality is that a lot of
people just haven't read much past the title: "Style Guide for Python
Code".  Or at least they appear to have no concept that it's about code
*in the stdlib only*.  People take it way, way too seriously for
non-stdlib code.  But they do, and it takes time to manage that.

Given that misunderstanding, is there a way to divorce stdlib-centric
guidelines like the one being discussed now from "PEP8"-ness?  I don't
think any amount of marketing effort or reasoned explanation is going to
separate "PEP8" from "correct code" in people's minds at this point.

- C

ps.. the real irritant behind my minirant is this:

OSS developers have spent many months jumping through bw incompat hoops
in Python over the last few years, and it has taken time away from doing
things that provide value.  The less I can do of that, the better, and
Python gets more value too.  That said, I realize that I'm in the
minority because I happen to have a metric ton of public code out there.
But it'd be nice if that was encouraged rather than effectively punished
on the hunch that it might provide some benefit for a theoretical new
user.