Ten Essential Development Practices

[gyromagnetic]

The following url points to an article written by Damian Conway
entitled "Ten Essential Development Practices":
http://www.perl.com/pub/a/2005/07/14/bestpractices.html

Althought the article has Perl as a focus, I thought that some of the
general points made might be of interest to the Python community. It
would certainly be interesting to put together an analogous version of
this article that centers on Python.

Best Regards,
g

[Michael Hoffman]

gy**********@gm ail.com wrote:

The following url points to an article written by Damian Conway
entitled "Ten Essential Development Practices":
http://www.perl.com/pub/a/2005/07/14/bestpractices.html

Althought the article has Perl as a focus, I thought that some of the
general points made might be of interest to the Python community. It
would certainly be interesting to put together an analogous version of
this article that centers on Python.

He spends so much space on "Create Consistent Command-Line Interfaces,"
a section that, in Python, could be replaced with a simple "Use optparse."
--
Michael Hoffman

[Jeremy Moles]

He spends so much space on "Create Consistent Command-Line Interfaces,"
a section that, in Python, could be replaced with a simple "Use optparse."
Haha... I don't know why but that really made me laugh. :) Might even
use it as a sig or something... :)

--
Michael Hoffman

[Robert Kern]

gy**********@gm ail.com wrote:

The following url points to an article written by Damian Conway
entitled "Ten Essential Development Practices":
http://www.perl.com/pub/a/2005/07/14/bestpractices.html

Althought the article has Perl as a focus, I thought that some of the
general points made might be of interest to the Python community. It
would certainly be interesting to put together an analogous version of
this article that centers on Python.

import this

And you get 9 bonus Essential Development Practices, too! What a bargain!

--
Robert Kern
rk***@ucsd.edu

"In the fields of hell where the grass grows high
Are the graves of dreams allowed to die."
-- Richard Harter

[Michael Hoffman]

Robert Kern wrote:

import this

And you get 9 bonus Essential Development Practices, too! What a bargain!

One of these days I'm going to figure out how to embody "Namespaces are
one honking great idea -- let's do more of those!" Then I shall be
enlightened.
--
Michael Hoffman

[Dan Sommers]

On Thu, 28 Jul 2005 21:19:53 +0100,
Michael Hoffman <ca*******@mh39 1.invalid> wrote:

Robert Kern wrote:

import this
And you get 9 bonus Essential Development Practices, too! What a
bargain!

One of these days I'm going to figure out how to embody "Namespaces are
one honking great idea -- let's do more of those!" Then I shall be
enlightened.

And when the one obvious way to do something *is* be obvious at first,
then I shall be Dutch! <wink>

Regards,
Dan

--
Dan Sommers
<http://www.tombstoneze ro.net/dan/>

[Aahz]

In article <dc**********@g emini.csx.cam.a c.uk>,
Michael Hoffman <ca*******@mh39 1.invalid> wrote:

Robert Kern wrote:

import this

And you get 9 bonus Essential Development Practices, too! What a bargain!

One of these days I'm going to figure out how to embody "Namespaces are
one honking great idea -- let's do more of those!" Then I shall be
enlightened.

What don't you understand about it? (This is a serious question -- I
can think of several answers to give you, but want to know what focus is
needed first.)
--
Aahz (aa**@pythoncra ft.com) <*> http://www.pythoncraft.com/

The way to build large Python applications is to componentize and
loosely-couple the hell out of everything.

[Michael Hoffman]

Aahz wrote:

One of these days I'm going to figure out how to embody "Namespaces are
one honking great idea -- let's do more of those!" Then I shall be
enlightened .

What don't you understand about it? (This is a serious question -- I
can think of several answers to give you, but want to know what focus is
needed first.)

I wasn't expecting a serious answer to this, but here goes.

First, I wasn't a Python user when namespaces were introduced. It's hard
for me to even imagine Python without namespaces. Did imported modules
just go into the same namespace as everything else? Yuck. It's too bad
this happened before there were PEPs so I could understand the design
and what came before.

Is it the fact that Python is unimaginable without namespaces that makes
them such a honking great idea? Aren't they somewhat of an obvious idea?
Several other languages have them.

Was the implementation of namespaces easy or hard to explain?

I'd love to do more honking great ideas, but I'm not even sure what the
Dutch ideal of a honking great idea is in the first place.
--
Michael Hoffman

[Robert Kern]

Michael Hoffman wrote:

Aahz wrote:

One of these days I'm going to figure out how to embody "Namespaces are
one honking great idea -- let's do more of those!" Then I shall be
enlightene d.
What don't you understand about it? (This is a serious question -- I
can think of several answers to give you, but want to know what focus is
needed first.)

I wasn't expecting a serious answer to this, but here goes.

First, I wasn't a Python user when namespaces were introduced. It's hard
for me to even imagine Python without namespaces. Did imported modules
just go into the same namespace as everything else? Yuck. It's too bad
this happened before there were PEPs so I could understand the design
and what came before.

I'm pretty sure that namespaces are fundamental to the design of Python.
I don't think there was any "before namespaces."
Is it the fact that Python is unimaginable without namespaces that makes
them such a honking great idea? Aren't they somewhat of an obvious idea?
Several other languages have them.

Was the implementation of namespaces easy or hard to explain?

It isn't just that Python has namespaces, but that they are the
implementation for quite a lot of things. Modules: namespaces. Classes:
namespaces. Instances: namespaces. Scope: namespaces. It's a very
elegant way to handle a broad class of language features very consistently.

That said, I made a boo-boo. The Zen of Python is really a set of design
principles (and some of them, like this one, are more specifically
*language* design principles), not Essential Development Practices.
That'll teach me to not RTFA.

--
Robert Kern
rk***@ucsd.edu

"In the fields of hell where the grass grows high
Are the graves of dreams allowed to die."
-- Richard Harter

[Dan Sommers]

On Thu, 28 Jul 2005 15:35:54 -0700,
Robert Kern <rk***@ucsd.edu > wrote:

That said, I made a boo-boo. The Zen of Python is really a set of
design principles (and some of them, like this one, are more
specifically *language* design principles), not Essential Development
Practices. That'll teach me to not RTFA.

May I respectfully disagree? The Zen applies to all aspects of software
(and other things, too, but they're off topic here), from human readable
reports and requirements and documentation, to GUI's, to test cases, to
code, to database schemta, as well as the development methodology and
practices themselves.

Sometimes you have to look at the Zen sideways, so that "implementation "
appears to be replaced by the particular aspect or aspects (or the
software, or just software, as a whole, for the true Masters out there)
you happen to be working on at the time, but such is the nature of Zen.

Regards,
Dan

--
Dan Sommers
<http://www.tombstoneze ro.net/dan/>