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

[Scott Dial]

Greg Ewing wrote:
> 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*.
> 
> 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.

And therein, you have defeated your own argument. Given the large body
of code that already follows PEP8 (and other style guides for other
languages that commonly use an 80-character boundary), it is a common
constraint which yields many common idioms (such as placing list items
on separate lines with similar indention).

The readers wished hard
For the thread to die quickly
Sadly it goes on

-- 
Scott Dial
scott at scottdial.com
scodial at cs.indiana.edu