All Questions
Tagged with python programming-practices
53 questions
37
votes
4
answers
22k
views
Are exceptions for flow control best practice in Python?
I'm reading "Learning Python" and have come across the following:
User-defined exceptions can also signal nonerror conditions. For
instance, a search routine can be coded to raise an exception ...
- 479
6
votes
2
answers
2k
views
Is it good practise to rely on the insertion order of python dicts?
Since python 3.7, it is guaranteed that dictionaries maintain insertion order. The linked stackoverflow Q&A states
This simply means that you can depend on it.
Is it good practise to depend on ...
- 662
0
votes
1
answer
1k
views
How to handle config/env vars in a library project
I am building a new Python library project to be consumed by several of my application projects. The existing code consumes environment variables for various configuration settings. Should my ...
- 183
6
votes
2
answers
19k
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Best practice for Python main function definition and program start/exit
What is best practice to define a main function and entry point for a script/module that may be used started as main, but not always?
Here's how I've been doing it in the past, similar to realpython:
...
- 181
2
votes
2
answers
4k
views
Module with globals or Class with attributes?
Currently I'm working with a lot of modules where the original developers used global variables to control states and to exchange important information between functions, like so:
STATE_VAR = 0
def ...
- 131
29
votes
6
answers
3k
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Turning a personal Python project into a releasable library
I'm an academic rather than a programmer, and I have many years' experience writing Python programs for my own use, to support my research. My latest project is likely to be useful to many others as ...
- 894
2
votes
1
answer
470
views
How to balance 'efficient' vs 'clean' code? [closed]
I have been coding in python for a little over a year, and I have learned a lot and developed quite a few applications, in the process.
I do not program for my profession, I simply program ...
- 139
8
votes
2
answers
6k
views
Sharing Docstrings between similar functions?
Assuming we have different classes with methods that possess the exact same description, however execute code a bit differently for the same return type.
class Foo:
"""This is the Foo class ...
- 365
12
votes
3
answers
8k
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Does it make sense to use string constants in Python instead of string literals as keys?
There is a dictionary in my class with informative, short string constants as keys that identify certain parts of the solution, like "velocity", "death_star_power_output". My colleague suggested that ...
- 229
-3
votes
1
answer
523
views
Import chains in Python
If my foo.py is merely foo_var = 1 and bar.py is merely import foo, I know I can write baz.py that says from bar import foo_var, but should I? (Or should I instead do from foo import foo_var?)
Is ...
- 697
16
votes
10
answers
9k
views
Preferring Python over C for Algorithmic Programming
I've been studying a bit of algorithms and have been looking at sites like SPOJ.pl TopCoder etc. I've seen that programmers prefer C or C++ usually for most algorithmic programming contests.
Now I'...
- 289
-4
votes
4
answers
3k
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Creating one function for multiple purposes vs multiple functions for one purpose each [closed]
I have one function that is used to compute distances of an object in 3 different ways.
Is one of the following two methods considered better practice:
Creating 3 different functions, one each for ...
- 115
1
vote
3
answers
246
views
What is a good method/practice I can employ to keep identical code snippits in two places in sync? Also, help documenting functionals
If I could get some input on the design of this, I would be grateful as well.
Note that I'm programming in python.
There's a function F that takes lots of data, runs some analysis on it (taking ...
- 165
-1
votes
2
answers
10k
views
Algorithm for scheduling shifts
I am trying to write a program to help scheduling shifts for the employees of a small business. There are 28 shifts that needs to be assigned to 28 employees (so this means that each person gets a ...
- 11
-1
votes
1
answer
329
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What is the programming paradigm when I just use functions in a file to organize my program?
I'm programming a telegram bot with Python and, for a number of reasons, there are no classes in the whole project, just several functions correlated to the the file where they are located. E.g., my ...
