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> 3. Say "well, at least it's not a backslash" and break the line using
> parentheses.

This. More times than not, there's a function call in that line, which
makes sense to me when reading it if the args are on the next line.

> 4. Spend 45 minutes trying to think up shorter [but still sensible]
> variable names to make it fit.

I generally can't shorten my variable names without breaking the
minimum length PEP8 rule


Now having said that, it kind of depends on the code base I'm working
with. If it's my own project, I never go past 79 characters (vim
tw=79). However, if it's a code base that I didn't start and it seems
to consistently go past 79 characters, I'll usually follow suit (with
my feet dragging of course). Nothing worse than inconsistency, even if
it's a standard I don't necessarily agree with