Python's use of global vs specifying the module

Question

Was wondering if anyone had any thoughts on the use of Python's global vs. referencing the module itself. While in the past I used global when needed, I've found it somewhat clearer to do the second method (and recently have tended to favor this syntax):

import sys
mod = sys.modules[__name__]

counter = 0

def incrementGlobal():
    global counter
    counter += 1

def incrementMod():
    mod.counter += 1

Obviously both of them work fine, but if anyone has any strong opinions (what is more pythonic, performance etc), I'd love to hear them.

Btw I end up using either of these in situations where the module naturally encapsulates all the methods and attributes of what would be a single class, and rather than reference incrementmodule.IncrementClass.counter i can just use incrementmodule.counter.

Answer 1

Go with global every time. The global keyword is an obvious and readily recognisable pattern for modifying something at module level. Giving a module a reference to itself from sys.modules seems a needlessly convoluted way of going around it, and is likely to confuse the next programmer who looks at it.