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[Python-Dev] .clinic.c vs .c.clinic

Terry Reedy tjreedy at udel.edu
Wed Jan 22 23:47:36 CET 2014 
On 1/22/2014 4:41 PM, Larry Hastings wrote:

> And yes, with 13 votes cast, it ended with a tie between
> "clinic/{filename}.h" and  "__clinic__/{filename}.h", both at +4. As
> officiant I get to be the tiebreaker.

Yep.

> My thoughts so far:
> * A bunch of longtime Python core devs cast their votes for
> "__clinic__": Nick, Terry, Stefan, Brett, Barry.  On the other hand,
> Antoine and Georg preferred "clinic".
> * We have the precendent of __pycache__, where we cache
> machine-generated code that's the equivalent of code that in a file
> that's a sibling of the __pycache__ directory.
> * But it's not a perfect metaphor.  For one, this directory will be
> checked in; __pycache__ directories should not be checked in.  For
> another, if you blow away a __pycache__ directory everything
> automatically works fine.  If you blow away a directory of Clinic
> generated code, you have to rebuild it by hand.  Until you do you've
> broken your build.
> * We also have the precedent of "stringlib", a directory containing a
> bunch of unpleasant-to-look-at headers containing C code.  It's not
> machine-generated code.  But it is templatized code, so it's kind of
> compile-time generated on the fly if you squint at it.  And it is
> checked in.
> * We also have the precedent of some machine-generated C code that is
> checked in in the Python tree: Python-ast.c, Python-ast.h. (Maybe one or
> two more?  I forget.)  None of these files have funny double-underscores
> prepended to their names.
>
> Also:
> If you only examine the people who voted +1 on "clinic", the sum of
> their votes on "__clinic__" is -0.5.
> If you only examine the people who voted +1 on "__clinic__", the sum of
> their votes on "clinic" is +2.
> Therefore, the people who voted for "__clinic__" are pretty tolerant of
> "clinic".  The people who voted for "clinic" are less tolerant of
> "__clinic__".
>
> And finally:
> The total positive votes for "clinic" were 6, and total for the minus -2.
> The total positive votes for "__clinic__" were 7, and the minus -3.
> So "__clinic__" seems slightly more divisive.
>
> I'm leaning towards "clinic", primarily because of precedents in CPython
> trunk. But also because it makes it look more on-purpose and permanent.
> And because it's more aesthetically pleasing to look at.

I think you nicely summarized the various thoughts on 'clinic/' versus 
'__clinic__'.

-- 
Terry Jan Reedy
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