[Zope3-dev] RFC: Guide for maintaining software in the Zope repository

[Philipp von Weitershausen]

On 24 Aug 2007, at 18:55 , Fred Drake wrote:
> On 8/24/07, Stephan Richter <srichter at cosmos.phy.tufts.edu> wrote:
>> That's not harsh. That's the point of a coding style. :-) The long- 
>> term
>> benefits are greater.
>
> Agreed!

Ok, then we're on the same page.

>> But if you prefer consistency, then we really should be staying  
>> with the Zope
>> 3 style guide,
>
> This, of course, all depends on the answer to the question:
> Consistency with what?  Zope 3 history?  The larger Python community?
> (Don't think the world agrees on PEP 8...)

This is a good question. The world may not agree on PEP8, but it  
seems to be predominant in the more recent code that I've encountered  
so far, such as Paste.

>> which is effectively PEP 8 with camel case methods, functions
>> and attributes. Also, the Zope 3 style guide does more than PEP 8  
>> as it
>> discusses other files and package structure as well. So, maybe we  
>> should
>> write another official ZF document with our style guide capturing  
>> the result
>> of this discussion.
>
> Maybe.

I'd like to avoid creating our own processes as much as possible if  
we can, hence my suggestion to use PEP8.  Stephan is probably  
referring to http://wiki.zope.org/zope3/CodingStyle. It seems  
horribly outdated in some areas. It does cover more than PEP8,  
though. Perhaps the differences to PEP8 should finds its way into my  
guide.

>> That said, I guess I could retrieve from "one style for a  
>> namespace" in the
>> interest of keeping z3c open for all to contribute to. But I  
>> certainly would
>> not switch to PEP8; we worked too hard to make the original Zope 3  
>> tree Zope
>
> What bugs me most is that changing the style used keeps coming up;
> it's silly to keep trying to change it.  *That* is what defeats the
> benefits of having one to start with.

Absolutely.

> I don't really care whether the style is the "classic" Zope 3 style or
> PEP 8, as long as it never changes.

With this you seem to suggest we should continue using the "classic"  
Zope 3 style.


I don't really care about the decision we end up with. My goals are:

* to have as little process and documentation to maintain for  
ourselves as possible,

* be "mainstream", in other words close enough to everybody so that  
the sacrifices everybody has to make are small compared to the benefits,

* share the same ideas with other projects that are close to us  
(twisted, Paste, etc.) because we will potentially use their stuff  
and they will potentially use our stuff.

One way or another, I was bound to run into resistance with whatever  
choice I made in the guide. I'll be happy to change the guide if this  
list can somehow come to a verdict on which style guide is preferred  
or if I receive a Papal edict (which I would save us a great deal of  
typewriter ink :))