I don't think I've ever been called a style guru before! I think you must have me confused with someone else. :wink: But for what it's worth, I'm not that fussed either way. PEP 8 prefers "()" but that's just a preference, not a hard and fast rule (but even the "rules" are breakable given the right circumstances). So as long as it's readable and consistent I reckon there's no point contesting it - i.e. the reviewer can save everyone's time and energy by ignoring it.

On a similar front, "The preferred place to break around a binary operator is after the operator, not before it." which @cpelley implicitly deals with in his tweaked code suggestion.

Perhaps the combination of the two "offences" :wink: warrants the tweak... I'm sure you'll come up with a sensible resolution.