[Python-Dev] Changes to PEP 327: Decimal data type (original) (raw)

Shane Hathaway shane at zope.com
Thu Mar 18 10🔞19 EST 2004

Tim Peters wrote:

More importantly, lowernames are correct. This gets confused in PythonLand because some major contributors (like Zope Corp) have institutionalized aWrongPolicy for naming methods. If you don't believe me, ask Barry. I believe him on this issue because he just can't be wrong about everything .

Since most of my Python work has been on Zope, I didn't notice Python has this naming convention until this thread. I've read PEP 8 several times, but the "method names" section only says to use lowercase. It doesn't say what to do if the method name requires multiple words. This is left to interpretation by the reader, and I've always interpreted it as meaning mixedCase. People who come to Python through Zope tend to guess that Python uses the same naming conventions as Java.

I suggest the "method names" section needs to be more specific to correct this misunderstanding. Perhaps: "Use lowercase_with_underscores for all method names. Single-word method names are preferred." It might also say that not all of the Python library follows this convention, but all new modules will.

I think I'll convert Ape (http://hathaway.freezope.org/Software/Ape) to this convention.

Shane

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