[Python-Dev] Why does PEP 7/8 explicitly suggest 2 spaces after a period? (original) (raw)

Bernardo Sulzbach mafagafogigante at gmail.com
Fri May 20 13:30:08 EDT 2016

On 05/20/2016 09:27 AM, Brett Cannon wrote:

The period is a full-stop punctuation mark, but visually obscure [1].

It is small. This does not make it hard to notice, however. Not to mention that it will usually be followed by a capitalized letter, which further highlights it. Commas usually use more pixels or ink and the tiny size of the period makes it quite distinguishable to me.

This email-based "tennis" match could go on for quite a while as Guido pointed out and there are several good points for both sides. This is not a critic to the thread, which regarded PEP 7/8 and seems perfectly fine. This is also not a critic to Cannon's view on this.

Who is right in the end? One space defenders Nobody. There is no single right solution to this. As there is no single right decision regarding tabs or spaces, except for spaces, always use spaces. Consistency is what really matters (assuming we agree that one space is enough to make it visible).

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