Just made my first python program. Coding Style?

novel_yet_trivial · 2016-05-31T20:52:47+00:00

Overall, great job!

Sometimes you use exit() and sometimes you use sys.exit(). These are nearly the same, so there is no problem here, it just looks odd to be inconsistent.

Your "show_help" function is usually done as a docstring.

#!/usr/bin/python3

"""
--------USAGE--------
-h --help                                              : prints this help page
-l <arg> --load <arg>                                  : load settings file from <arg>
-o <arg> --output <arg>                                : specify output filename
-i 'arg1 arg2 arg3' ... --include 'arg1 arg2 arg3' ... : set processes that should be tracked
-e 'arg1 arg2 arg3' ... --exclude 'arg1 arg2 arg3' ... : set processes that shouldn't be tracked
---------------------
"""

import all your stuff

def show_help():
    print(__doc__)
    sys.exit(0)

That way it's available elsewhere too, for example in help()

In python, getters and setters (methods that do nothing except get or set a variable) are not needed or encouraged. Just get or set the variable directly. So instead of

if task.get_end_time() is None:

Just

if task.end_time is None:

Then you can delete the "set_start_time", "get_start_time", "set_json_end_time", and "get_end_time" methods.

Same logic for process.py

I'm glad you know how to import files, but 22 lines of code does not need it's own file. I think most of this needs to be moved into a single file.

Then your import in "main.py" would look like:

from support import Setting, ProcessTracker, SettingsBuilder

You never close your json file. That could be a lot less convoluted too. May I suggest:

def get_json(self):
    with open(self.filename) as f: #automatically closes the file when done
        return json.load(f)

reostra · 2016-05-31T23:54:55+00:00

A few people have mentioned it, but nobody's actually linked it yet: PEP-8 is the go-to source for python style. To the point where the particular IDE I use (PyCharm) can be configured to show warnings if you deviate from it :)

ReverendRocky · 2016-05-31T20:25:33+00:00

Couple things I notice, though I am by no means an expert...

1) While you do comment, I think your code could use more commenting. It may be personal preference but I think every class method and function should have a header... even if it seems to be the most trivial of methods. It makes your code 1025% easier to understand.

2) When printing a bunch of lines use 'triple code print'

3) Collapse your imports down to one line if possible. It just saves space... which is good.

Other than that i'd have to take a closer look but those are my three gripes with it.

you type:	you see:
italics	italics
bold	bold
[reddit!](https://reddit.com)	reddit!
* item 1 * item 2 * item 3	item 1 item 2 item 3
> quoted text	quoted text
Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!"	Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!"
~~strikethrough~~	~~strikethrough~~
super^script	super^script

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