[Python-Dev] Tweaking PEP 8 guidelines for use of leading underscores (original) (raw)

Nick Coghlan ncoghlan at gmail.com
Tue Jul 16 08:10:31 CEST 2013

On 16 July 2013 16:01, Chris McDonough <chrism at plope.com> wrote:

Well, I know it's arguing with the umpire at this point, but PEP8 prescriptionism (great word by the way!) is de rigeur these days. It's a python-dev perogative to ignore that, but it has consequences that reverberate further than this maillist.

Yeah, we should probably be a bit more vocal in pointing out that PEP 8 is something to be applied judiciously, not treated as "sacred writ, never to be questioned". It's very tempting to just sigh and ignore it, instead of explicitly pointing out the problems with taking it too literally for people's personal projects (or, worse, using it to abuse developers of projects that long predate the recommendations in more recent versions) :P

Cheers, Nick.

-- Nick Coghlan | ncoghlan at gmail.com | Brisbane, Australia

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