On Thu, 12 May 2011 00:54:32 +1000 Steven D'Aprano <steve@pearwood.info> wrote:
Paul Moore wrote:
What's wrong with just saying that continuation lines should be formatted as appropriate to ensure readability, and leave it at that? +1
-1. This sentiment is adequately expressed by the "A Foolish Consistency ..." section. It shouldn't need repeating.
I think that specifying exactly how to indent continuation lines, or even whether or not to indent them, is way too controlling for my tastes. I don't believe it makes that much difference. Like the brace wars, if there actually was any objective, meaningful, consistent benefit of one style over the others, there would be no argument about it. Instead, it's all subjective, vague, and far from consistent.
If you don't believe it makes much different "whether or not to indent them", I suggest you align all continuation lines on the left hand side of the page in code you have to maintain and then report back to us. As for there being no benefit for one choice over another - that's true about almost everything in the PEP (four space indent instead of tabs? 80 character or 79 characters lines? spaces around = with exceptions? No spaces before/after "." and after open parens or before close parens? etc.). The goal is consistency. The important thing isn't so much what we choose as that we choose something so it'll be consistent when it doesn't make any difference. <mike -- Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org> http://www.mired.org/ Independent Software developer/SCM consultant, email for more information. O< ascii ribbon campaign - stop html mail - www.asciiribbon.org