[Python-Dev] pep8 reasoning

[Guido van Rossum]

On Thu, Apr 24, 2014 at 7:11 AM, Skip Montanaro <skip at pobox.com> wrote:

> On Thu, Apr 24, 2014 at 8:59 AM, Barry Warsaw <barry at python.org> wrote:
> > I will say this: the original preference for underscore_names in PEP 8
> was
> > spurred by user studies some of our early non-native English speaking
> users
> > conducted many years ago.  We learned that it was more difficult for
> many of
> > them to parse mixedCase names than underscore_names.  I'm afraid I
> probably no
> > longer have references to those studies, but the difference was
> pronounced,
> > IIRC, and I think it's easy to see why.  Underscores can be scanned by
> the eye
> > as spaces, while I'd hypothesize that the brain has to do more work to
> read
> > mixedCase names.
>
> Given Guido's background, I suspect these studies might have been done
> at CWI in the context of the ABC language.


I'm sorry, I have no recollection of such studies. (ABC used case
differently anyway, so camelcase wasn't possible there -- and neither were
underscores).

Barry maybe referring to a more informal survey of feedback from Python
users at the time. But I have no recollection of that either.

-- 
--Guido van Rossum (python.org/~guido)
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