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Coding Conventions

These are some general guidelines that help maintain consistency across projects.

Naming Conventions

  • Do not include the following characters in filenames, function names, or variable names: spaces, periods, most other special characters (underscores and dashes are okay)
  • Keep names short but descriptive
  • Keep naming conventions consistent within a project
    • Lowercase, separate words by an underscore
      • enrollment_table.csv
      • claims_2012.parquet
    • CamelCase, separate words denoted by capilization
      • EnrollmentTable.csv
      • Claims2012.parquet

Python-Specific Conventions

Python often has its own general style guidlines which are similar to the above, but vary depending upon what is being named. The general naming convention rules still apply with the following modifications.

  • Functions: lowercase with words separated by an underscore
    • def grab_raw_claims()
  • Variables: lowercase with words separated by an underscore
    • num_days = 31
    • Constants can be all caps with words separated by underscores: DAYS_IN_WEEK = 7
  • Classes: CamelCase
    • pd.DataFrame
    • class MedicaidEnrollee()
    • Instances of a class: lowercase, same as variables
      • df = pd.DataFrame()

R-Specific Conventions

Many of the Python-specific conventions apply. A few additional ones:

  • Avoid using restricted names for your objects (e.g., data)
  • Track which libraries you actually need to load, and ensure you load them in a consistent order to avoid conflicts. Consider using the double-colon operator (e.g., dplyr::filter())
  • Your R scripts should not include calls to system-altering functions such as install.packages(). Consider using the renv package to manage dependencies

We highly recommend referring to the Tidyverse Style Guide.