unittest lowercase methods

[simonzack]

BPO	22250
Nosy	@ezio-melotti, @bitdancer, @cool-RR, @serhiy-storchaka, @remilapeyre

^{Note: these values reflect the state of the issue at the time it was migrated and might not reflect the current state.}

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GitHub fields:

assignee = None
closed_at = <Date 2014-08-22.20:07:36.453>
created_at = <Date 2014-08-22.14:57:28.002>
labels = ['library']
title = 'unittest lowercase methods'
updated_at = <Date 2020-05-28.08:21:11.967>
user = 'https://bugs.python.org/simonzack'

bugs.python.org fields:

activity = <Date 2020-05-28.08:21:11.967>
actor = 'serhiy.storchaka'
assignee = 'none'
closed = True
closed_date = <Date 2014-08-22.20:07:36.453>
closer = 'ezio.melotti'
components = ['Library (Lib)']
creation = <Date 2014-08-22.14:57:28.002>
creator = 'simonzack'
dependencies = []
files = []
hgrepos = []
issue_num = 22250
keywords = []
message_count = 7.0
messages = ['225673', '225698', '225702', '225703', '370170', '370172', '370175']
nosy_count = 6.0
nosy_names = ['ezio.melotti', 'r.david.murray', 'cool-RR', 'serhiy.storchaka', 'simonzack', 'remi.lapeyre']
pr_nums = []
priority = 'normal'
resolution = 'rejected'
stage = 'resolved'
status = 'closed'
superseder = None
type = None
url = 'https://bugs.python.org/issue22250'
versions = ['Python 3.4']

[simonzack]

The python unittest module currently uses camel case. This feels rather inconsistent with the rest of the python library, which is in lower case and follows PEP-8.

Would it be a good idea to add lower-case aliases, and possibly deprecate the camel case methods in the future?

[bitdancer]

We tried going down this path with the Threading module in the python3 transiontion, and it was a mess. I don't think we are going to do it for any other module.

[serhiy-storchaka]

assertlessequal looks non-readable and assert_less_equal is two characters longer.

[ezio-melotti]

This has been already proposed and rejected in the past.
It's not something that is going to happen (at least until Python 4 or 5).

[cool-RR]

I see it's been 6 years since the last comment here. I think it's important to revisit these kind of decisions once in a while. Maybe now the time is ripe for a change? We could do it backward compatibility with a long deprecation schedule.

Ezio: You said this was proposed and rejected. Can you link to the discussion? I couldn't find it.

[remilapeyre]

See for example https://mail.python.org/archives/list/python-ideas@python.org/thread/4HE2GFL27LGBSHGWOBDOOBPEULC52U4D/#RC3QWQUX6VP56K2WXSMRZ5IGNAUBXKRI

[serhiy-storchaka]

https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0008/#a-foolish-consistency-is-the-hobgoblin-of-little-minds