<p><pre><code>    the party line seems to be "this is the way we do
    things, if you like what you see, come on in, if not, 
    no worries"
</code></pre>
That is absolutely not the case; Python is the anti-TMTOWTDI. The Python community is very vocal and explicit about the conventions developers are expected to follow, more so than any other language I'm aware of: PEP 8, Zen of Python, non-stop critiques about whether some code is "pythonic" enough.