[petsc-dev] petsc4py doc problem

Barry Smith bsmith at petsc.dev
Sun Jul 2 11:53:46 CDT 2023


  I am fine with 100 for the Python formatted comments. I think it is not unreasonable to expect people to be able to have a terminal width of 100 when working with Python.

  Let's have a vote, 79 or 100?

  


> On Jul 2, 2023, at 6:14 AM, Lisandro Dalcin <dalcinl at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On Wed, 28 Jun 2023 at 08:09, Barry Smith <bsmith at petsc.dev <mailto:bsmith at petsc.dev>> wrote:
>> 
>>   Generally, I like Python a great deal and think Python developers make good decisions, but their love of the 80-character limit is absurdly out of character and so fundamentally wrong.
>> 
> 
> The 79-character limit comes from PEP 8, which regulates code for the Python project itself and their standard library. 
> At some point other people start following PEP 8 as if it were the ultimate set of rules to be applied everywhere, but IMHO that was not the original intention of PEP-8. 
> PEP-8 was written in 2001, at a time where diversity of opinion and expression was way more valued and encouraged. Nowadays, folks seem to be craving for centralized authorities producing common regulations for the flock to follow blindly.
> 
> The NumPy docstring standard (https://numpydoc.readthedocs.io/en/latest/format.html#docstring-standard) says: The length of docstring lines should be kept to 75 characters to facilitate reading the docstrings in text terminals.
> I agree with the rationale, although I acknowledge that the 75-char limit is subjective, i.e, people may feel perfectly comfortable reading longer lines.
> 
> Many other projects have updated these limits to a more generous figures.
> The `black` Python code autoformater suggests 88 chars https://black.readthedocs.io/en/stable/the_black_code_style/current_style.html#line-length, following recommendations from R. Hettinger https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wf-BqAjZb8M&t=260s, a very well respected person in the Python community.
> 
> PETSc can very well increase the limit to anything you consider sensible, as long as the agreed limit is somehow enforced, which is what Stefano just implemented.
> 
> -- 
> Lisandro Dalcin
> ============
> Senior Research Scientist
> Extreme Computing Research Center (ECRC)
> King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST)
> http://ecrc.kaust.edu.sa/

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