[Python-Dev] pep8 reasoning

[Terry Reedy]

On 4/28/2014 2:12 PM, Chris Barker wrote:

> I don't think anyone should write code with variable width fonts,

The problem is that fixed pitch does not work well for even a half-way 
complete unicode font and I don't know that there are any available. As 
far as I know, my Windows 7 only came with one unicode font that Idle 
finds. An advantage from my viewpoint is that spaces in this font are 
narrower that the average character, making multiple-of-4 indents and 
spaces around operators look pretty good to me.

Given that PEP8 generally disallows adding spaces to make things line 
up, as in the following (a style I used  to adhere to)

a     = 134543344  # big number
bonge = 2          # short number

it seems to me consistent to use the multiple-of-4 hanging indent style 
and not try to make things line up with an odd number of spaces in this 
one special case.

-- 
Terry Jan Reedy