[Python-Dev] Re: Adopting Optik (original) (raw)

Fran�ois Pinard pinard@iro.umontreal.ca
14 Nov 2002 12:40:29 -0500

[Guido van Rossum]

[...] One of the tasks is to adopt Greg Ward's options parsing module, Optik. I propose to adopt this under the name "options". Any comments?

My feeling is that Python should much avoid, for a library module, a name which is likely to be a user variable name. This would rule out "options".

In my experience so far, the most irritating cases in Python hurding common words for itself have been string' and socket'. I know that some people write s' for a string and would write o' for options, but this algebraic style is not ideal. I find that using real words, like counter', ordinal', cursor', index' or such, yields more readable programs.

When one "imports" a module, one has to give up using the module name for other purposes. Currently, I think all my callable scripts which handle options already use options' for a variable name, so I would prefer that options' be left alone.

This is why I think Python should not offer a module named "text" for example. As a principle for the future, let simple, common words be available to users for naming their own variables.

-- Fran�ois Pinard http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/~pinard