Also, do y'all call main() in the if block or do you just put the code you want to run in the if block?
this post was submitted on 28 May 2025
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Python people explaining fail to see the point: Yes we know dunders exist. We just want you to say: "Yeah, that is a bit hacky, isn't it?"
Tbh reserving "main" is just a hacky if not more so than checking
__name__if you actually understand language design.Reserving
mainis definitely more hacky. Try compiling multiple objects withmaindefined into a single binary - it won't go well. This can make a lot of testing libraries rather convoluted, since some want to write their ownmainwhile others want you to write it because require all kinds of macros or whatever.On the other hand,
if __name__ == "__main__"very gracefully supports having multiple entrypoints in a single module as well as derivative libraries.