Question

Which one of these two method invocations is considered most pythonic?

some_method(that_has, very_many, aurguments=None, of_different=None, 
            kinds=u'', and_importance=None, spanning=u'multple lines'):

or

method_args = {
   u'first_arg' : that_has,
   u'second_arg' : very_many,
   u'arguments' : None,
   u'of_different' : None,
   u'kinds' : u'',
   u'and_importance' : None,
   u'spanning' : u'multiple lines'
}
some_method(**method_args)

Personally I prefer the second when the first spans more than 2 lines and the first way if it fits in one line, for two lines I am not quite certain.

Edit: The passed arguments might not be as short and static as in my example, more likely to be quite long names.

Answer 1

If it’s just a static call like that, the above is more Pythonic. If you want (and some people actually do this) you can align it like this:

some_method(
    that_has,
    very_many,
    arguments=None,
    of_different=None, 
    kinds=u'',
    and_importance=None,
    spanning=u'multple lines'
)

Also note that your second way doesn’t even work – it only passes keyword arguments (to arguments that might not even be keywords).