How to make Python interpreter a little more strict?

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Mon, 28 Mar 2016 07:49 am, BartC wrote:

> On 27/03/2016 21:32, Tim Chase wrote:
>> On 2016-03-27 14:28, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> 
>>> In this case, the two lines "fnc" and "next" simply look up the
>>> function names, but without actually calling them. They're not
>>> quite "no-ops", since they can fail and raise NameError if the name
>>> doesn't exist, but otherwise they might as well be no-ops.
>>
>> Which is actually useful.  I've got some 2.4 code that reads
>>
>>    try:
>>      any
>>    except NameError:
>>      def any(...):
>>        ...
>>
>> (with a similar block for all() )
>>
>> I don't want to call any() or all(), I simply want to test whether
>> they exist.
> 
> But would it have been much of an imposition to have typed:
> 
>      try:
>        test = any
>      except NameError:
>        def any(...):
>          ...
> 
> ? (Or any of the half dozen ways there must be to test the existence of
> a name.)

No, not much of an imposition. But then you might have your linter (if you
bother with one) complaining that you define "test" but never use it.

But regardless of whether it is an imposition or not, that's not how we do
it. It's a stylistic choice, that's all. We've explained the reasons for
it, but it ultimately comes down to a matter of taste.



-- 
Steven