On 15Jun2022 05:49, Chris Angelico <ros...@gmail.com> wrote: >On Wed, 15 Jun 2022 at 05:45, Roel Schroeven <r...@roelschroeven.net> wrote: >> Not (necessarily) a main function, but these days the general >> recommendation seems to be to use the "if __name__ == '__main__':" >> construct, so that the file can be used as a module as well as as a >> script. Even for short simple things that can be helpful when doing >> things like running tests or extracting docstrings. > >If it does need to be used as a module as well as a script, sure. But >(a) not everything does, and (b) even then, you don't need a main() >function; what you need is the name-is-main check. The main function >is only necessary when you need to be able to invoke your main entry >point externally, AND this main entry point doesn't have a better >name. That's fairly rare in my experience.
While I will lazily not-use-a-function in dev, using a function has the benefit of avoiding accidental global variable use, because assignments within the function will always make local variables. That is a big plus for me all on its own. I've used this practice as far back as Pascal, which also let you write outside-a-function code, and consider it a great avoider of a common potential bug situation. Cheers, Cameron Simpson <c...@cskk.id.au> -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
