[Python-Dev] styleguide inconsistency (original) (raw)

Darren Dale dd55 at cornell.edu
Mon Apr 23 17:15:34 CEST 2007

I was recently searching for some guidance on how to name packages and modules, and discovered an inconsistency in the style guides published at www.python.org. http://www.python.org/doc/essays/styleguide.html says "Module names can be either MixedCase or lowercase." That page also refers to PEP 8 at http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0008/, which says "Modules should have short, all-lowercase names. ... Python packages should also have short, all-lowercase names ...".

Some discussion on dev.lang.python has so far turned up the following points of view:

  1. There isn't technically a contradiction because "can be" is not the same as "should be".

However, since this is a style guide and not a syntax guide, I still think the documents are contradictory.

  1. There isn't any confusion because the styleguide refers to the PEPs, so they have priority.

However, styleguide.html does not explain that the PEPs are more up-to-date. We shouldn't expect someone to go to the PEPs after finding an answer to their question in the styleguide.

Perhaps one of these documents could be revised to make the situation more clear?

Thanks, Darren Dale

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