Why "flat is better than nested"?

[bruno.desthuilliers at gmail.com]

On 25 oct, 15:34, Alex Willmer <a... at moreati.org.uk> wrote:
> On Oct 25, 11:07 am, kj <no.em... at please.post> wrote:
>
> > In "The Zen of Python", one of the "maxims" is "flat is better than
> > nested"?  Why?  Can anyone give me a concrete example that illustrates
> > this point?
>
> I take this as a reference to the layout of the Python standard
> library and other packages i.e. it's better to have a module hierarchy
> of depth 1 or 2 and many top level items, than a depth of 5+ and only
> a few top level items.
>
(snip)

This also applies to inheritance hierarchies (which tend to be rather
flat in Python compared to most mainstreams OOPLs), as well as nested
classes etc.