On 4/25/22 16:34, Cameron Simpson wrote: > On 23Apr2022 03:26, Avi Gross <avigr...@verizon.net> wrote: >> We know some people using "professional" language make things shorteror >> talk from a point of view different than others and often in >> otherwise incomprehensible jargon. >> If a programmer is taking about the algorithm that a function implements, >> then, yes, they may write "scan" and "return". >> But if they realize the darn documentation is for PEOPLE asking how to use >> the darn thing, and want to write in more informal and understandable >> English, I think it makes more sense to say what the function does as in >> "scans" and importantly what it "returns" to the user as a result. > > I'm in the imperative camp. But if I think the function requires some > elaboration, _then_ I provide description:
Just as another data point, if nothing else to prove there will never be consensus :) - Google's style guide is pretty explicit about what they expect: > The docstring should be descriptive-style ("""Fetches rows from a Bigtable.""") rather than imperative-style ("""Fetch rows from a Bigtable."""). -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list