pep8 Re: Posting warning message

[Tamara Berger]

Is it possible to do the "linting" after you've written your code but
before you install it for the first time?

Tamara
On Wed, Jun 13, 2018 at 12:30 AM Cameron Simpson <cs at cskk.id.au> wrote:
>
> On 13Jun2018 00:05, Tamara Berger <brgrt2 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >Thanks for the in-depth answer. I'm going to have to read it
> >carefully, with the help of a Python glossary. Some of the terms you
> >use are new to me.
>
> No worries. Just ask if you don't find definitions.
>
> BTW, a "lint" program, or "linter" is a program for reporting on style trivia,
> trivial logic errors like variable used before defined (or never defined, which
> is often a typing error misspelling a variable or function name), and things
> that look like they might be bugs (a common mistake of mine is constructing
> exceptions like logging calls, and one of my linters has found dozens of these
> for me.)
>
> >>or am I supposed to root around for my module and make the edits one by one?
> >
> >I was trying to be amusing and didn't get my point across.
>
> Ah, ok then. Easy for stuff like that to fall flat in email.
>
> >>Finally, no you don't normally root around and change an installed module.
> >>Instead, modify your original copy and reinstall the newer version!
> >
> >What I meant was, do I have to open the file, search for, e.g., colons
> >and insert space after them? These were the sorts of picayune errors
> >picked up by PEP8 on my program. I deliberately omit such spaces when
> >I code because I like to do as little unnecessary work as possible.
> >There is enough repetitive coding as it is. I know some IDEs have word
> >completion suggestion for variables, etc, that the user creates. But
> >I'm practicing in barebones IDLE and that means a lot of extra work.
>
> Regrettably, yes, unless you're using an editor that has autoformatting
> support. Learn typing habits which minimise stuff like that, it saves going
> back later.
>
> I don't use IDEs on the whole, and I don't use an autoformatter for Python. My
> environment tends to be an editor window and a shell to run things from (thus:
> 2 terminals, one running vim and one running a shell).
>
> Training your fingers to do the trivia reflexively helps. And leaving the
> linting until _after_ you've got your code working correctly helps, because you
> aren't changing tasks midstream and you are linting code you've deleted or
> changed :-)
>
> An editor with syntax support can help. I use vi or vim, and its syntax support
> is fairly crude. Two things its does have which I use a lot is autoindent (as
> simple as starting the next line at the same indent as the one I just
> completed) and syntax highlighting, which colours keywords and identifiers and
> strings differently. When you make trivial mistakes like not closing a quote or
> misspelling a keyword or leaving off a colon there is often a visual cue.
>
> Cheers,
> Cameron Simpson <cs at cskk.id.au>