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In the Java ecosystem, they call it best practices. But of course using the phrase "best practices" these days is considered taboo. Thus the use of the word "id

In the Java ecosystem, they call it best practices. But of course using the phrase "best practices" these days is considered taboo. Thus the use of the word "idiomatic"?

Ixiaus 15y ago
A "best practice" is essentially the same thing as "idiomatic python" in my opinion - I could pick apart different meanings from each but often times, it really is used to say the same thing. The phrase "best practice" isn't taboo in my experience - I'll often ask what the "best practice would be for implementing XYZ". If you rephrase that, "what is an idiomatic way to implement XYZ", it's saying the same thing. Python's community probably leans toward this diction because the culture of python revolves around the nebulous concepts of simplicity, obviousness, and "only one way", that in order to make those concepts more hylic and less "abstract and subjective" there is a lot of education (in the form of docs, PEP8, the very doc linked to in this post) to set the stage for what the expected idiom is.
Goladus 15y ago
A "best practice" is an optimal way to do something in a given context. An "idiom" is a commonly accepted way to express the thing you want to do. Best practices and idioms overlap, but are not identical.
mekoka 15y ago
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/idiom http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/idiom An idiom is rather a preferred practice. If you take some time to read through some Python source, you'll notice that, although the code uses the exact same constructs that you are used to in Java, it does so in a manner you might find unfamiliar or unpredictable. One example is the use of try/except instead of if/else (beg for forgiveness rather than ask permission). Another is Duck-typing rather than Interface (if it quacks like a duck...) Coming from Java and looking at some Python code without forewarning or context, you might just be tempted to label the whole thing as really really bad practice, when in truth, it's just Idiomatic Python.
- Goladus 15y ago
  To be fair, though, some of the things on that list really do seem more like best practices, like advice not to use: from module import *

In the Java ecosystem, they call it best practices. But of course using the phrase "best practices" these days is considered taboo. Thus the use of the word "idiomatic"?

Ixiaus 15y ago

A "best practice" is essentially the same thing as "idiomatic python" in my opinion - I could pick apart different meanings from each but often times, it really is used to say the same thing. The phrase "best practice" isn't taboo in my experience - I'll often ask what the "best practice would be for implementing XYZ". If you rephrase that, "what is an idiomatic way to implement XYZ", it's saying the same thing. Python's community probably leans toward this diction because the culture of python revolves around the nebulous concepts of simplicity, obviousness, and "only one way", that in order to make those concepts more hylic and less "abstract and subjective" there is a lot of education (in the form of docs, PEP8, the very doc linked to in this post) to set the stage for what the expected idiom is.

Goladus 15y ago

A "best practice" is an optimal way to do something in a given context. An "idiom" is a commonly accepted way to express the thing you want to do. Best practices and idioms overlap, but are not identical.

mekoka 15y ago

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/idiom http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/idiom An idiom is rather a preferred practice. If you take some time to read through some Python source, you'll notice that, although the code uses the exact same constructs that you are used to in Java, it does so in a manner you might find unfamiliar or unpredictable. One example is the use of try/except instead of if/else (beg for forgiveness rather than ask permission). Another is Duck-typing rather than Interface (if it quacks like a duck...) Coming from Java and looking at some Python code without forewarning or context, you might just be tempted to label the whole thing as really really bad practice, when in truth, it's just Idiomatic Python.

Goladus 15y ago
To be fair, though, some of the things on that list really do seem more like best practices, like advice not to use: from module import *