Advanced Python: Consider These 10 Elements When You Define Python Functions
No matter what implementation mechanisms programming languages use, all of them have a reserved seat for functions. Functions are essential parts of any code project because they’re responsible for preparing and processing data and configuring user interface elements. Without exception, Python, while positioned as an object-oriented programming language, depends on functions to perform data-related operations. So, writing good functions is critical to building a resilient code base
It’s straightforward to define a few simple functions in a small project. With the growth of the project scope, the functions can get far more complicated and the need for more functions grows exponentially. Getting all the functions to work together without any confusion can be a headache, even to experienced programmers. Applying best practices to function declarations becomes more important as the scope of your project grows. In this article, I’d like to talk about best practices for declaring functions — knowledge I have accrued over years of coding.1. General Guidelines
You may be familiar with these general guidelines, but I’d like to discuss them first because they’re high-level, good practices that many programmers don’t appreciate. When developers don’t follow these guidelines, they pay the price — the code is very hard to maintain.
Explicit and meaningful names
We have to give meaningful names to our functions. As you know, functions are also objects in Python, so when we define a function, we basically create a variable of the function type. So, the variable name (i.e. the name of the function) has to reflect the operation it performs.
Although readability has become more emphasized in modern coding, it’s mostly talked about in regards to comments — it’s much less often discussed in relation to code itself. So, if you have to write extensive comments to explain your functions, it’s very likely that your functions don’t have good names. Don’t worry about having a long function name — almost all…
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