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To start with, it's worth noting that the Zen of Python is more about development *of Python*, rather than development *with Python*. That may mean that some bits of its wisdom are more applicable to questions about the Python language design and the interpreter that implements it than they are about anything you write in Python for your own uses.

I think we can see how the "Namespaces are one honking great idea" line makes sense in that context. It's basically an admonishment to add new features to the Python standard library, within some module's namespace, rather making things keywords or putting them into the builtin module, which would make them available all the time without any namespace prefix.

Similarly, it's reflected in language design ideas like the `import` statement by default adding only the imported module to the current namespace, with `from some_module import *` being strongly discouraged. The star import form is the default for how imports work in quite a few other languages that don't use namespaces as well or as much as Python does!

To sum up, I think you're correct that most Python programmers are going to use namespaces whether they want to or not. It's part of the Python language's design that pushes them to do that, and that design is what the Zen of Python is all about.