What does "Sparse is better than dense" mean? (Python Zen)

James J. Besemer jb at cascade-sys.com
Fri Jul 12 01:43:58 EDT 2002


Alex Martelli wrote:

> No such official pronouncement for now on whether linebreak must always
> come right after a colon (though I suspect I know where the BDFL's
> sympathies lie on this, he hasn't gotten around to writing them down,
> AFAIK, and surely not in PEP 8 so far -- good, gives us heretics-to-be
> more time to prepare _our_ underground network...).

Examples without the intervening line break appear in PEP 8.

> Interestingly enough, I find I can live with everything that is
> mandated in PEP 8 -- some recommendations are not my favorite ones,
> but there's nothing really major in it that irks me.

It's hard to complain about a style guide that acknowledges up front that "A
Foolish Consistency is the Hobgoblin of Little Minds" and that furthermore
common sense may at times dictate breaking the rules.

--jb

--
James J. Besemer  503-280-0838 voice
http://cascade-sys.com  503-280-0375 fax
mailto:jb at cascade-sys.com







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