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From: Ben Finney <ben+python@benfinney.id.au>
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Subject: Re: Continuing indentation
Date: Sat, 05 Mar 2016 12:05:09 +1100
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Erik <python@lucidity.plus.com> writes:

> On 05/03/16 00:23, Simon Ward wrote:
> > Style guides are always going to be considered incorrect by some
> > people, but they should aim more for consistency (the hobgoblin that
> > may be), which is what makes code easier to grok.
>
> So you're saying that it doesn't matter if something is good or bad,
> as long as it's consistently so?

That's not my reading of the above. “X more than Y” does not dismiss the
importance of Y.

> Am I not allowed to suggest that the style guide is wrong in what it
> suggests?

Certainly you are allowed. You should not expect that suggestion to be
compelling unless it is accompanied by *factual*, rather than emotive,
argument.

If the advantage is small, you need to accept that the small advantage
will be weighed against the high cost of a long period of inconsistency
with existing, currently-conformant, code. That may be enough to rule
out the option you are suggesting, because we're not starting from a
blank slate of no existing code.

You also need to accept that many choices in a good style guide *will*
be on the basis of choosing among many good options, and thereby exclude
a number of good options from that guide.

It doesn't make those options un-good, it just means that conforming to
the style guide excludes those options.

-- 
 \         “For a sentimentalist is simply one who desires to have the |
  `\    luxury of an emotion without paying for it.” —Oscar Wilde, _De |
_o__)                                                 Profundis_, 1897 |
Ben Finney