79 chars or more?

[Roald de Vries]

Dear Jean-Michel,

On Aug 18, 2010, at 10:57 AM, Jean-Michel Pichavant wrote:
> At least, if you still want to stick with 79 chars, do something like
>
> text = find(response, 'MPNExpirationDate', ).text
> self.expiration_date = translate_date(text,'%Y-%m-%d', '%m%d%Y')

I don't necessarily like this example *so* much. I have no real  
problem with it, and maybe would write it myself sometimes, but I'm  
curious what people think of the following reasoning.

I think that, for optimal readability, variable names should reflect  
the role if the function/class/module of the variable they refer to.  
If you stick to this convention, a function can normally be read very  
easily by just scanning through the left part of assignment  
statements. In your case, it looks like text would better be called  
expiration_text, or something like that. But what I would like better,  
is:

     self.expiration_date = translate_date(
             text    = find(response, 'MPNExpirationDate', ).text,
             format1 = '%Y-%m-%d', # I don't know the argument name
             format2 = '%m%d%Y',   # ... and of this one neither
             )

Moreover, the 'text = ...'-like statement, that are only used in the  
one statement after it, often interrupt a (more) logical sequence of  
variable assignments, and make your program a bit less readable.

Cheers, Roald