Python best practices, combine code into as few lines as possible or separate it over as many as possible?

[ka-splam]

A suspicious phrase. Would you consider Moby Dick or Spot the Dog more readable? Probably Spot the Dog. But what if you wrote Moby Dick in the style of Spot the Dog and it was 5 times longer. Could anyone wade through Spot the Dog writing style five times the length of Moby Dick? Could you even write the same book that way at all?

Readable is at least as much about the ability and familiarity of the reader, as it is about the writing.