the slogan came out when the alternative was Perl, and in Perl you could do the same thing in a million ways, and each of them was equally "idiomatic".
> There should be one-- and preferably only one --obvious way to do it. [1]
Note the `should` and the `obvious`. Is it not a strict rule about having a single way to do things. It is about the aspiration that, if you do something, there is single obvious way to do it, much better than the others.
(I agree though that not even this is true anymore, see how many different ways you have to interpolate strings).
> There should be one-- and preferably only one --obvious way to do it. [1]
Note the `should` and the `obvious`. Is it not a strict rule about having a single way to do things. It is about the aspiration that, if you do something, there is single obvious way to do it, much better than the others.
(I agree though that not even this is true anymore, see how many different ways you have to interpolate strings).
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_of_Python