Anaconda linter, why so picky about whitespaces?

Question

As part of my journey into learning Python, I've been intrigued by Anaconda and been pasting free code off the web for Py2.7 and making it work with Py3.

Anaconda is very helpful in showing me errors, but why does it complain so much about whitespaces and new lines at end of code etc. None of this affects the operation (or speed) of the code, does it?

Or would the cumulative effect of say, one hundred thousand unneccessary whitespaces in a big code block, actually slow it down?

Thanks.

Answer 1

About the speed: No (unless you have REALLY crappy HDD). The main reason is that there are some standarts (in python they are called PEPs) with say how the code shoud look.