Comment by sago

One thing I find that makes a big difference is using the PEP8 indentation rules for writing lines of the form

    variable = some_function((some nested expression that is very long
                              and needs to wrap))

as

    variable = some_function((
        some nested expression that is very long but may not need to wrap
        but if it does there's tons more room for it))

I.e. you don't have to differentiate between 'syntax indents' and 'expression indents', every thing is just an indent of the same size. Which has the advantage that almost every editor can indent it correctly, and it works with both space and tab indents, whereas you're at the mercy of your Python editing mode whether the 'indent to sibling' works for everyone (and if not, the programmer has to sit tapping space to line it up right). Both approaches are in PEP8, but i find that simple change removes 99% of all >80 line cases for me.

The only caveat, also covered in PEP 8 is for function definitions.

    def some_descriptive_function_name(one_parameter,
                                       another_parameter):
        some_functionality()

becomes

    def some_descriptive_function_name(
            one_parameter, another_parameter):
        some_functionality()

i.e. the parameter lines are double indented.