Conformity and you - a question of style

Greg Chapple

https://github.com/gchp @gregchapple http://gregchapple.com

• not generally the most exciting topic
• starting a project - think about language, framework, libraries, test coverage - style not so much
• every line of code follows some sort of style convention - intentional or not - similar to your accent
• naming, single vs double quotes, strict line length ...
• we pick up the style/accent from who we learnt from

patterns vs style

• inconsistent styles
  • mixed quotes
  • spacing
• consistent patterns
  • list comprehensions rather than multiple for loops
• switching cost from project to project
• lack of consistency inside and between projects
• need a documented style guide for contributors
• pep8
• flake8
• jshint
• gofmt
• naming conventions
• use of lambdas
• globals, exceptions, indentation, semicolons, whitespace, comments ...

people take criticism of coding style much more readily from a program than from a person

from PEP8

• code is read more often than it is written - see also PEP20
• consistency is important - most important within a module

examples from open source projects:

• docstrings with single/triple quotes
• method argument arrangement
• when new lines are put in, with what indentation

Use your judgement - readability is the aim, not slavish rule-following

“Write your code as if the person who will maintain it is a psychopath who knows where you live”

• gofmt has some early python equivalents - yapf, pyfmt, autopep8