Editing My Python Coding Conventions

= Coding Conventions Etc. =

In reading the code it may be of some use to know what conventions I have ( tried ) to follow.  The code has been developed over quite a period of time so the standards are not uniform.  What I write here are the standards that are in quite a bit of the code and the directions that I am trying to move.  In all of the coding consistency is an important standard.  Here are some areas.

== Names ==
Be consistent: this is good but have not been very successful in standards: I keep changing my mind.  Names across classes are pretty consistent.  I am avoiding short names and try to make them descriptive enough that they are somewhat self documenting.  References are often copied across objects for easy access ( lots of parameters for example ); when this happens the name of the object is generally ( should be always ) the same in both objects.

== Formatting ==

Nothing special here but I like white space and use a lot.  This is not standard Python.  But this is what I like.

== Docstrings ==
Work towards using them.  Not good as of 2017 Jan

== Imports ==
*In most cases use the format "import xyz" so the name space is not polluted and so it is easy to identify just what an imported class is.
*In in objects that are almost all GUI then using "from Tkinter import *"  is ok but better is: "import Tkinter as Tk"
*I normally have only one or a few classes in a file so there is a lot of what I call "local imports".  
*Almost all imports are at the top of a file, std library imports first then "local imports".

== Object Orientation ==

Almost everything is a class.  Not much in the way of module functions, not many classes in a module.  I am trying to have all my classes descend from something be it only Object.  And now that I am in Python 3.6 this is how it always works.

== Documentation for Class Instance Methods ==

Look something like this:

    def create_class_from_strings( self, module_name, class_name):
        """
        This will load a class from string names
        It makes it easier to specify classes in the parameter file.
        I believe it is used for both the comm drive and the "processor"
        args:  strings
        ret:   instance of the class
        Side effects Class created 
        """

The comment should give the intent of the method, some hint as to the args ( which hopefully have good names ), and some info. on the return value.  zip means nothing, void....

I am moving toward using __ and _ as prefixes for more private methods, but have not gone too far in this direction.


== Links ==


[[Configuration Files For Python]]