To Whom It May Concern, Knuth's quote refers to the output of TeX, the programming language he authored. The quote cannot be interpreted to speak about formatting of source-code. One bit of evidence I can offer is that TeX's source only cares about multiple newlines in considering the multiplicity of whitespace. This means that Knuth's quote likely has little or no bearing on the format of source-code.
Further, TeX, being a modal language, has two modes of outputting math: inline(like in a paragraph) and display. This is what the quote refers to. So, Knuth is quoted referring to the output of his language, not the format of its source. He wrote that a binary operator is printed before a line-break in inline-mode of TeX's output while that same operator is printed after the newline in display-mode. PEP8's reference to Knuth's quote as a definitive rule for formatting python source-code is inappropriate. Is PEP8 a joke at the expense pedantry common of those new to programming? PS: Knuth's quote was taken from The TeXbook, a text about his programming language. -Kyle -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
