As part of a general effort to produce basic Q&As for Python, recently I've been focused on issues related to starting up an interpreter and running the code - so, questions about setting up an environment with third-party libraries, figuring out an entry point for the code, and so forth.

In particular, I've just now written Understanding the if __name__ == '__main__': idiom, in my own style. But I completely forgot that we already have What is the purpose of if __name__ == '__main__'? (which in fact is one of the highest-rated questions in the tag currently).

There are some minor differences:

• My question is a deliberately written self-answered attempt at a canonical; the other arose organically

• My question is written with a consistent (I hope) editorial style to match the other Q&As I've been writing

• The prior question was focused on understanding existing (seemingly useless) code, whereas mine supposes that the reader is also interested in using the same idiom in new code

Normally, these factors wouldn't hold me back: I'd consider my own question clearly a duplicate, and I wouldn't presume that my own work was such high quality as to justify closing the other question. But I wanted to get the community's opinion.

Should I close my own question as a duplicate of the other? Should I migrate my answer and adapt it for the details of the original question? (I'm not sure how I'd naturally fit all of the content in.) What else seems appropriate here?

posted 6 months ago

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Karl Knechtel‭

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