Is it bad practice to have a variable that has the same name as a function?
28th September 2012
My answer to Is it bad practice to have a variable that has the same name as a function? on Quora
Yes, it’s definitely not a good idea. In Python functions and variables share the same namespace, so if you create a variable with the same name as a function you won’t be able to call that function.
(I admit I do break this rule occasionally when the variable scope is short enough that I’m certain it won’t cause any problems... but I shouldn’t. Do what I say, not what I do!)
More recent articles
- Video: Building a tool to copy-paste share terminal sessions using Claude Code for web - 23rd October 2025
- Dane Stuckey (OpenAI CISO) on prompt injection risks for ChatGPT Atlas - 22nd October 2025
- Living dangerously with Claude - 22nd October 2025