From the PEP8 style guide:

"Many projects have their own coding style guidelines. In the event of any conflicts, such project-specific guides take precedence for that project."

and

"A Foolish Consistency is the Hobgoblin of Little Minds".

And, throughout, PEP8 makes it clear that it is a set of recommendations, and that if a project or community already has an established style, it need not be changed.

You misunderstand. I’m not criticizing Google not following PEP8. They’re welcome to make whatever modifications they want. I do the same. For example, I don’t like having two blank lines between methods and I don’t limit my line widths to 80 characters. This personal or project level alteration is fine. However, when your target audience is the Python community at large, you are better off following the PEP8 standard, which everyone knows and is comfortable with, rather that a project specific format, just because you personally find it more convenient. Standards are pretty important in the publishing industry, so I’m not sure why this is so controversial here today.

Why are you arguing against PEP8? As you mentioned in your final sentence, the Python community DOES have an established standard. It is called PEP8. The parent has made a valid point. Why would you criticize or trash his "karma" for stating it?

You say I'm arguing against PEP8 by quoting PEP8? That's hard to understand. Whose karma am I "trashing", and how? I certainly didn't downvote him, if that's what you mean.

Others have already made the point about PEP8 being a guideline, so I just wanted to also point out that not all style guides would agress with you on Bayes'/'s theorem. Case in point, the APA style guide: http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2013/06/forming-possessive...

I'm not sure why you were down-voted. This is a valid point and as a college professor and author, I'm sure Downey would appreciate any feedback that would make his book better.

Would you mind sticking to civil and substantive comments, and also resist complaining about voting? The guidelines are pretty clear.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I can't downvote. The author points out his differences and provides his reasons why. The criticism doesn't add any value to the conversation because it has been addressed already by the author himself.

I disagree. In Python, the PEP8 standard is to use snake case for variables and function names. Classes should appear in this format: ClassName. Downey uses the class style for functions because, according to him, he feels it would be too inconvenient to do it the right way. This is a lazy cop-out. If you're writing a book targeting the Python community you should adhere to the Python PEP8 standards out of respect for your readers, if nothing else. The parent poster poses a valid question and it most definitely adds to the conversation because it calls into question the author's respect for his audience.

How is what Downey did any different from me writing a book and stating that correct spelling, grammar, and editing would be too inconvenient for me, so I'm just going to type whatever I feel like and that should be OK, because I addressed my lack of quality and attention to detail during my introduction?

By the way. Thanks for commenting.

This comment is in such perfect harmony with https://www.cia.gov/news-information/featured-story-archive/...

Small mercies that Python community does not speak this.