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

[Nick Coghlan]

On 16 July 2013 16:01, Chris McDonough <chrism at plope.com> wrote:
> Well, I know it's arguing with the umpire at this point, but PEP8
> prescriptionism (great word by the way!) is de rigeur these days.  It's
> a python-dev perogative to ignore that, but it has consequences that
> reverberate further than this maillist.

Yeah, we should probably be a bit more vocal in pointing out that PEP
8 is something to be applied judiciously, *not* treated as "sacred
writ, never to be questioned". It's very tempting to just sigh and
ignore it, instead of explicitly pointing out the problems with taking
it too literally for people's personal projects (or, worse, using it
to abuse developers of projects that long predate the recommendations
in more recent versions) :P

Cheers,
Nick.

--
Nick Coghlan   |   ncoghlan at gmail.com   |   Brisbane, Australia