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[Python-Dev] PEP 257 and __init__

Facundo Batista facundobatista at gmail.com
Tue Dec 29 16:03:54 EST 2015 
On Tue, Dec 29, 2015 at 4:38 PM, Andrew Barnert <abarnert at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Isn't the same thing true for every special method? There are lots of classes where __add___ just says "a.__add__(b) = a + b" or (better following the PEP) "Return self + value." But, in the rare case where the semantics of "a + b" are a little tricky (think of "a / b" for pathlib.Path), where else could you put it but __add__?
>
> Similarly, for most classes, there's only one of __init__ or __new__, and the construction/initialization semantics are simple enough to describe in one line of the class docstring--but when things are more complicated and need to be documented, where else would you put it?

Yeap. Note that I'm ok to include a docstring when the actual
behaviour would deviate from the expected one as per Reference Docs.
My point is to not make it mandatory.


> I usually just don't bother. You can violate PEP 257 when it makes sense, just like PEP 8. They're just guidelines, not iron-clad rules.

Yeap, but pep257 (the tool [0]) complains for __init__, and wanted to
know how serious was it.


[0] https://pypi.python.org/pypi/pep257

-- 
.    Facundo

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