Is PEP-8 a Code or More of a Guideline?

[Paul McGuire]

I'm starting a new thread for this topic, so as not to hijack the one
started by Steve Howell's excellent post titled "ten small Python
programs".

In that thread, there was a suggestion that these examples should
conform to PEP-8's style recommendations, including use of
lower_case_with_underscores style for function names.  I raised some
questions about this suggestion, since I liked the names the way they
were, but as a result, part of the discussion has drifted into a
separate track about PEP-8, and naming styles.

I was under the impression that lower_case_with_underscores was a
dated recommendation, and that recent practice is more inclusive of
mixedCase style identifiers.  On the contrary, Steven Bethard
straightened me out, saying that PEP-8 used to accept either style,
but has been amended to accept only lower_case_with_underscores.

My latest thought on the topic relates back to the Martin v. Löwis
thread-that-would-not-die requesting feedback about PEP 3131, on
adding support for non-ASCII identifiers in Py3K.  I posted an out-of-
curiosity comment asking about how underscore separators mix with
Unicode identifiers, including the mechanics of actually typing an
underscore on a non-US keyboard.  At this point, I realized that I was
taking things too far off-topic, so I decided to start a new thread.

Steve, sorry for taking your thread down a rathole.  I hope we can
move any further PEP-8-related discussion (if the point merits any) to
this thread.

-- Paul