On Thu, Apr 24, 2014 at 11:59 PM, Barry Warsaw <ba...@python.org> wrote: > I will say this: the original preference for underscore_names in PEP 8 was > spurred by user studies some of our early non-native English speaking users > conducted many years ago. We learned that it was more difficult for many of > them to parse mixedCase names than underscore_names. I'm afraid I probably no > longer have references to those studies, but the difference was pronounced, > IIRC, and I think it's easy to see why. Underscores can be scanned by the eye > as spaces, while I'd hypothesize that the brain has to do more work to read > mixedCase names.
Underscores also play much more nicely with initialisms. How would you spell a function named "Add HTTP Header"? add_HTTP_header add_http_header addHTTPHeader addHttpHeader Four options to choose from. The first two clearly separate the initialism from the other words; take your pick whether you want it uppercased or not, because it's separated either way. In mixedCase, the first one merges the H of Header in with HTTP; with something less well known, that can be a nasty readability problem. The second one is probably more readable, but looks weird. Or, here's another one: converting one thing into another, where both are named by their initials: convert_XML_to_JSON convert_xml_to_json convertXMLToJSON convertXmlToJson Same four options. Which is the more readable? ChrisA _______________________________________________ Python-Dev mailing list Python-Dev@python.org https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-dev Unsubscribe: https://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-dev/archive%40mail-archive.com
