Anyone want to critique this program?

[Chris Angelico]

On Tue, Jul 5, 2011 at 10:03 AM, Ben Finney <ben+python at benfinney.id.au> wrote:
> Chris Angelico <rosuav at gmail.com> writes:
>
>> In this instance, I believe the OP was paragraphing his text.
>
> What is “paragraphing”?

If you look at the original code, you'll see embedded newlines used to
create multiple paragraphs. Hence, paragraphing as opposed to simply
wrapping in order to keep his source lines <80 chars.

>> My personal inclination would be to simply back-tab it. It looks ugly,
>> but at least it works, and doesn't require a run-time re-parse.
>
> Readability counts. Why is “doesn't require a run-time re-parse” more
> valuable than readability?

Readability definitely counts. But having a string literal require an
extra call to make it what you want also costs readability. It's like
pushing your literals off to an i18n file - what you gain in
flexibility, you lose in simplicity.

ChrisA