[Python-Dev] Direction of PyChecker (original) (raw)

Jeremy Hylton jeremy@zope.com
Thu, 9 Aug 2001 18:00:11 -0400 (EDT)

"GvR" == Guido van Rossum <guido@python.org> writes:

Specifically, where should it go? What should it include or not include? What should the default warnings be?

GvR> You'll never satisfy everyone. Personally, I write too much GvR> code without docstrings, so I find the complaints about missing GvR> docstrings annoying. I guess my preference would be to have GvR> the default mode ony complain about things that have a high GvR> probability of being coding errors -- undefined names and the GvR> like. I forget if you're checking string formatting GvR> conformance yet -- that would also be useful.

It would be much more helpful if the default setting identified real bugs rather than coding style issues. The doc string one is probably the most glaring. Add a -Wall option that turns on everything to satisfy the pedants.

By way of example, I used pychecker on urllib2 yesterday. It reported 78 bugs of which 3 were real. Based on that feedback, I wouldn't use the tool again, but would let other people sift through the noise and report the bugs back to me.

Jeremy