Can I ask about a similar real problem I had a few times? How would you format this code?
class Batman():
# ...
def handle_jokes(self, villains):
for villain in villains:
if villain.supports_jokes:
formats, transports = villain.query_joke_formats_and_transports()
# ...
That long line is 82 characters. Assume there's a good reason formats and transports are queried together. In practice this leads to variable names f and t. :(
Again, the longer version is clearer and simpler, but the shorter version is not so confounding that it is a slamdunk argument for longer lines, particularly as, for any length line, you could get this problem, so you'll have to do something like it eventually. If you're seeing this all over the place, it may be worth wrapping the API in more pythonic terms. 'Getters' taking no arguments, for example, are often a code-smell in python, though queries (as in your case) are a good exception, since it is also not great to have properties do expensive work (like querying a DB, say).
What if that's part of a published interface? One that maybe also contains things like query_joke_history(), format_joke(), transport_joke() and execute_practical_joke().
