[Python-ideas] 80 character line width vs. something wider

[Greg Ewing]

spir wrote:
> On the other side, the Oulipo school of writing believes that writing with
> apparently arbitrary constraints improves the results.
> 
> Oulipo games are about helping *creativity*.

The best explanation I've seen for this phenomenon is that it
works by forcing you to avoid cliches. For example, if you
have to fit your words into a fixed meter, you can't just
use the first phrasing that comes into your head. You have
to hunt around for alternative words that fit the pattern,
and in the process you most likely come up with something
original and surprising.

I don't think this applies in the same way when you're
writing a program. The goal there is *not* to be original
and surprising -- if anything it's the opposite! You
want to convey the meaning of the code to the reader as
clearly as possible, and if it uses an idiom that the
reader has seen before and can instantly recognise, then
so much the better.

-- 
Greg