News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Tools of the Modern Python Hacker: Virtualenv, Fabric and... by amelim on Wednesday July 08, 2009 @02:15PM (#694348)
I know this may be hearsay, but I've been using pylint and have been generally pleased with the results. I don't take everything it says as the ultimate source of coding standards, but it will pick up on some silly mistakes one might make and generally make my code more maintainable.

Granted, I'm still in University, but I think your disdain for automated code quality tools may be misplaced. Instead blaming the tools, why not blame the community as a whole for engaging in arcane coding practices.

Re:Tools of the Modern Python Hacker: Virtualenv, Fabric and... by jacobolus on Wednesday July 08, 2009 @04:00PM (#694559)
You mean heresy. Hearsay is information you learned from a friend. :)
Re:Tools of the Modern Python Hacker: Virtualenv, Fabric and... by yters on Wednesday July 08, 2009 @06:11PM (#694825)
He may have learned that from a friend. Who here really remembers what they did during one of those all night coding sessions?
Re:Tools of the Modern Python Hacker: Virtualenv, Fabric and... by amelim on Thursday July 09, 2009 @02:00AM (#695320)
Could be, but sadly no. Chalk this up to a fatal reliance on Firefox spellchecker and laziness.
Re:Tools of the Modern Python Hacker: Virtualenv, Fabric and... by grandalf on Wednesday July 08, 2009 @04:08PM (#694569)
There are definitely legitimate uses of such tools... I myself occasionally use jslint, to minimize the chances of obscure browser compatibility issues.

However some poeple run these "code quality" measures as part of a regular test suite, so if you write a method that has more than 3 lines you get a warning or failure.

In my opinion this leads to less readable code, as methods are prematurely refactored simply for size, and coders tend to do things like putting a hash literal on a single long line rather than formatting it for maximum readability.

This is just my opinion... I don't hold it against someone to use them, I just think they can make code less readable, not more.