Joshua Landau <jos...@landau.ws> wrote: > That's true with this example, but is: > > lines = [ > "Developments in high-speed rail, and high-speed", > "transport more generally, have historically been", > "impeded by the difficulties in managing friction", > "and air resistance, both of which become", > "substantial when vehicles approach high speeds.", > "The vactrain concept eliminates these obstacles", > "by employing magnetically levitating trains in", > "tubes kept at a complete vacuum, allowing for", > "heoretical speeds of thousands of miles per", > "hour. The high cost of constructing such a system,", > "however, and the difficulty of maintaining a", > "vacuum over large distances, has prevented this", > "type of system from ever being built. The", > "Hyperloop can be viewed as a modified vactrain,", > "employing more cost-effective solutions to the", > "same problems the latter was designed to solve." > ] > > really more readable than: > > lines = """\ > Developments in high-speed rail, and high-speed > transport more generally, have historically been > impeded by the difficulties in managing friction > and air resistance, both of which become > substantial when vehicles approach high speeds. > The vactrain concept eliminates these obstacles > by employing magnetically levitating trains in > tubes kept at a complete vacuum, allowing for > heoretical speeds of thousands of miles per > hour. The high cost of constructing such a system, > however, and the difficulty of maintaining a > vacuum over large distances, has prevented this > type of system from ever being built. The > Hyperloop can be viewed as a modified vactrain, > employing more cost-effective solutions to the > same problems the latter was designed to solve. > """[1:-1].split("\n") > > ?
I suppose the question really is whether the author of the second example really meant to start with the word 'evelopments'? If that was a mistake, then the first one is demonstrably less error prone. If it was intentional then the second one is definitely less readable. Either way I think you've proved that the first way of writing it is more readable. -- Duncan Booth -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list