An `import` inside an `if` block makes the name function-local everywhere. Combined with a bare except, it turned a caching feature into a no-op that never logged anything.
I was reading an open-source instrument-control library to add docstrings — a boring job, deliberately. Boring jobs make you read code you'd otherwise skim.
About two hundred lines into one function I found a caching feature that had never worked. Not "worked badly." Never executed successfully, not once, and never left a trace of failing.
Here's the shape of it, reduced to the part that matters:
def get_instrument(resource_address, driver_type="GENERIC"):
if resource_address == "AUTO":
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