All Questions
Tagged with programming-practicespython
53 questions
37votes
4answers
22kviews
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
6votes
2answers
2kviews
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
0votes
1answer
1kviews
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
6votes
2answers
19kviews
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
2votes
2answers
4kviews
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
29votes
6answers
3kviews
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
2votes
1answer
469views
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
8votes
2answers
6kviews
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
12votes
3answers
8kviews
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
-3votes
1answer
522views
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
16votes
10answers
9kviews
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
-4votes
4answers
3kviews
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
1vote
3answers
246views
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
-1votes
2answers
10kviews
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
-1votes
1answer
329views
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 ...
