this post was submitted on 28 May 2025
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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?

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[–] brian@programming.dev 4 points 4 days ago

python isn't the only language to do "execute everything imported from a particular file and all top level statements get run". both node and c# (but with restrictions on where top level statements can be) can do that type of thing, I'm sure there's more.

python conventions are unique because they attempt to make their entrypoint also importable itself without side effects. almost no one needs to do that, and I imagine the convention leaked out from the few people that did since it doesn't hurt either.

for instance in node this is the equivalent, even though I've never seen someone try before:

if (path.resolve(url.fileURLToPath(import.meta.url)).includes(path.resolve(process.argv[1])))
{
  // main things
}