Coding Style Guide

The purpose of this document is twofold:

1. To ensure that anyone who might like to make my code better understands why I write python the way I do
2. To ensure I adhere to my own style because I'm terribly inconsistent

Being terribly inconsistent, the guidelines are not set in stone and if you have a good argument for doing things a particular, I don't really care.

BUT first and foremost, code must comply with PEP8 first. This is easy to automate. I like black since it's easy to use but there' plenty of advanced linters out there.

I usually invoke it like this to turn off forcing double quotes and force the line length to 72:

black -S -l 72 file.py

That aside, I have the following idiosyncracies:

1) Strings are double-quoted. Keys and chars are single-quoted.

This is really just because I like how C does it. And Cpython's C-based so why not?

Like so:

string = "This is a phrase"
word = "word"
cur_char = 'a'
newline = '\n' # note, two characters, but it's still ONE char out
# keys are single-quoted to avoid confusion
dictionary = { 'key'  "1245dqw3w431", 'return': newline }

The only exception is for strings with quotes in them (anything to avoid escapes, really)

quoted_string = (
    '"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take - Wayne Gretsky"'
    ' - Michael Scott'
)

That brings me to my next point.

2) Long strings belong in parentheses

As in:

longboi = (
    "This is a really long string usefull when making help menus. Be\n"
    "sure to leave s space at the end of each line, or add a new line\n"
    "when needed.\n\n"

    "Try your best to keep formatting accurate like this."
)

3) Tabs are four spaces and spaces are ALWAYS preferred to tabs

Again, see PEP8.

4) Always add spaces between arithmetic, but never for brackets

It's a pain to read:

1/(2*sqrt(pi))*exp(x**2)

Do this

1 / (2 * sqrt(pi)) * exp(x ** 2)

The same goes for logic operators

true & false ^ true

5) EVERYTHING should be snake_case

This is python. Unless there's a compatibility thing (like a library's code was written that way, or it matches an API variable), snake_case is preferred.

user_input = int(input()) # variable
MAX_INPUT = 1000 # constant
def judge_input(_input, _max): # function
    if _max > _input:
        print("Too big!")

judge_input(user_input, MAX_INPUT
class Input_Judger: # a class
    # etc etc

Example exception:

# this doesn't actually work, but you get the idea
r = requests.get("www.debian.org")
pageSize = r.json()['pageSize'] # camel case ok

6) If it's over 100 lines, you probably need a new file (and a class)

This is more of a general coding thing, but I've encountered so many 1000 line monster out there, I need to reiterate it. I understand how these things come to be, having made a few myself in the beginning. You get an idea and want to see it through in full. Like On the Road it comes out as a scroll Merlin himself would be proud of.

But coming back to the scroll in a week half-drunk and half-tired is not a situation you want to be caught in. You can always import any python code you write with a simple:

import filename

As long as it's in the same directory.

Go up to parent folder (/thoughts/syntax)