Evaluate coding and style

[Jean-Michel Pichavant]

Rhodri James wrote:
> On Thu, 24 Sep 2009 21:11:36 +0100, Brown, Rodrick  
> <rodrick.brown at citi.com> wrote:
>
>> I recently started playing with Python about 3 days now (Ex Perl guy) 
>> and wanted some input on style and structure of what I'm doing before 
>> I really start picking up some bad habits here is a simple test tool 
>> I wrote to validate home dirs on my system.
>
> Ethan's made some good points.  Here are a couple more.
>
> [snip]
>> try:
>>   fh = open(filename)
>> except IOError:
>>   print "No such filename: %s" % (filename)
[snip]

It's is usually a bad idea to loose information when giving feedback to 
the user.
try:
  fh = open(filename)
except IOError, exception:
  print "Error openning %s : " % (filename, exception)

In general, if you want to improve your coding style/rules, read PEP 8 
and this  page :
 http://tottinge.blogsome.com/meaningfulnames/

This is a must read (yet you still can disagree).
Regarding this,
fh = open(filename) would become
fileHandler = open(fileName)

Much nicer to read :o)

These are just suggestions, cheers.

JM