Naming

• Use meaningful names

• Avoid, in general, 1 letter names

• Never use l, I or O as can be confusing

• Use ascii characters

No:

def my_func(): pass
def f(): pass

Yes:

def do_nothing(): pass

• Naming styles:

  • lower_case_with_underscores: variables, functions, methods, modules

  • CamelCase: Classes and Exceptions

  • _single_leading_underscore(self, ...): protected methods and internal functions

  • __double_leading_underscore(self, ...): private methods

  • ALL_CAPS_WITH_UNDERSCORES: constants

  • Use self as first argument in methods

• When using abbreviations in CamelCase, capitalize all the letters of the abbreviation

  No

  HttpServerError

  Yes

  HTTPServerError

• Use trailing underscores to avoid conflicts with reserved keywords instead of abbreviating the name

  No:

  class Spam:
      def eggs(clss): pass
  

  Yes:

  class Spam:
     def eggs(class_): pass
  

• Avoid redundant labelling

  E.g. in the audio module

  No:

  def audio_play(): ...;
  

  Yes:

  def play(): ...;
  

• Prefer reverse notations

  No:

  elements = ...
  active_element = ...
  

  Yes:

  elements = ...
  elements_active = ...
  

• avoid abbreviations unless they are de-facto standard

• use complementary names for complementary operations: create/destroy, add/remove, …

• some booleans can have a special prefix (is-, has-, contains-…)

• try to be positive and avoid negation:

  No:

  def is_not_found(): ...
  

  Yes:

  def is_found(): ...