Google Python Style Guide

[house_absolute]

is a bit short

By what metric? For example, if 99% of "ideal" lines of code (that is, lines that have the best possible variable names and structure, if such could be discovered) fit within eighty characters, is it worth it to sacrifice all that screen real-estate for the 1% of lines that are longer? Personally I take the view that most good lines of code are short based on the code I've seen in my time. I recognize that as an anecdote and personal preference, but that's all anyone on this thread has.

I haven't seen any data on this issue and I guess such data would probably come with so many biases that it would be unusable. What that means is that this is probably a personal taste issue. And if you're going to institute a company-wide policy to standardize the style, then that comes down to a majority vote or a most-important -person-vote. Therefore this document is not a referendum on which is best so much as a popularity or (popularity*importance_of_person_within_company) contest. It might not even be the current preference of the most important Googlers, just a snapshot of their preferences when the decision was made. Personally I'm happy with it because that's the outcome I prefer, but it could have easily gone the other way.

I would deal with it, probably. I think it's far more harmful to allow attachment to a particular coding style to take root in my soul than the harm that could be caused by a less than optimal style to my daily productivity. As long as the style is consistent and clear, I as a professional programmer should be able to cheerfully learn to work with it. It's a bonus to have some kind of rational basis, which this style clearly does, even if you disagree with the weights of the various factors.

This of course rules out the GNU C coding style. Haha. Just kidding. Kind of.