Conventions

• Read and pay attention to current code in the repository
• For the Python part, we follow pep8 in most cases. We use flake8 to check for linting errors. Once you’re ready to commit changes, check your code with flake8.
• Install a plugin for EditorConfig and let it handle some of the formating issues for you.
• For the Django part, we follow standard Django coding style.
• And always remember the Zen.

Coding Rules

Django models

• All model names in singular an CamelCase.
• All models have a Meta with at least:
  • verbose_name and verbose_name_plural: unicode strings, lowercase, with spaces.
  • ordering: return a consistent order, using pk if no other unique field or combination exists.
• All models have __unicode__ method, returning a human-readable, descriptive, short text.
• All fields have verbose_name. Also help_text if needed to fully explain the field meaning.

• All fields have explicit blank and null parameters. Use only those combinations, unless there a documented need of other thing:

  Normal fields (IntegerField, DateField, ForeignKey, FileField…)
  - (optional) null = True, blank = True
  - (required) null = False, blank = False

  Text fields (CharField, TextField, URLField…)
  - (optional) null = False, blank = True
  - (required) null = False, blank = False

  Boolean fields:
  - (two values, T/F) null = False, blank = True
  - (three values, T/F/Null) null = True, blank = True

• Don’t create text fields with null = True, unless you need to distinguish between empty string and None.

• Don’t create boolean fields with blank = False, otherwise they could only be True.

Example:

class SomeClass(models.Model):
    name = models.CharField(max_length=100, null = False, blank = False, unique=True,
               verbose_name = _(u'name'))
    slug = models.SlugField(max_length=100, null = False, blank = False, unique=True,
               verbose_name = _(u'slug'),
               help_text = (u'Identifier of this object. Only letters, digits and underscore "_" allowed.'))
    text = models.TextField(null = False, blank = True,
               verbose_name = _(u'text'))

    class Meta:
        verbose_name = _(u'some class')
        verbose_name_plural = _(u'some classes')
        ordering = ['name']

    def __unicode__(self):
        return self.name