[Python-ideas] AMEND PEP-8 TO DISCOURAGE ALL CAPS

[Abe Dillon]

>
> How do you propose, instead, for the constantness of something to be
> indicated?

That's a good question. I honestly don't use constants all that much, I
like to move such things out to config files. For a constant like math.pi,
it's never been caps, yet people know it's not a great idea to change it.
There are a lot of tools to indicate constantness:

1) provide a property to access an otherwise _plz_dont_touch_variable
2) Use an Enum
3) Use documentation to say: treat this as constant
4) Rely upon consenting adults to not change variables outside of scope.
It's weird to manipulate math.pi because it's in a separate module.

I stopped using all caps a long time ago and it just hasn't created a
problem because manipulating global variables without knowing what they are
is such a bad idea to begin with.

On Fri, Jan 4, 2019 at 5:16 PM Chris Angelico <rosuav at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sat, Jan 5, 2019 at 10:10 AM Abe Dillon <abedillon at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> So you're saying we should prefer a future where it's an inconsistent
> mess?
> >
> > No. And please don't straw man. It's a very annoying argumentative
> tactic. I prefer a future where all caps aren't used. I understand that the
> change I propose won't magically transport us there, but I don't think it
> justifies encouraging all caps. As it is, the mix of all caps, camel-case,
> and snake-case IS and inconsistent and visual mess. Discouraging all caps
> will only result in a diminishing occurrence of all caps.
> >
> >> it's.more important to have a standard than what that standard is. And
> we do have a strong standard today.
> >
> > I understand that there's a barrier to change, but there's also a
> circular logic to resisting change because adhering to a standard is good.
> >
> > How bad would it really be to remove the line about constants being all
> caps from PEP-8?
>
> How do you propose, instead, for the constantness of something to be
> indicated?
>
> ChrisA
> _______________________________________________
> Python-ideas mailing list
> Python-ideas at python.org
> https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-ideas
> Code of Conduct: http://python.org/psf/codeofconduct/
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-ideas/attachments/20190104/f024e201/attachment.html>