From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: jon@fourwinds.com (Jon Steinhart) Date: Fri, 10 Nov 2017 13:02:55 -0800 Subject: [TUHS] 80 columns ... In-Reply-To: <20171110205806.GB29606@mcvoy.com> References: <7wpo8rud7y.fsf@junk.nocrew.org> <60C45CFF-0B5C-4DAB-8936-BA27ECFFA487@gmail.com> <025501d3598f$008f19d0$01ad4d70$@ronnatalie.com> <201711101905.vAAJ5SpV031420@darkstar.fourwinds.com> <47fee362-0fde-69ff-7794-a88cf3069030@telegraphics.com.au> <201711102043.vAAKhaYB020128@darkstar.fourwinds.com> <20171110205806.GB29606@mcvoy.com> Message-ID: <201711102102.vAAL2tM6024205@darkstar.fourwinds.com> Larry McVoy writes: > On Fri, Nov 10, 2017 at 12:43:36PM -0800, Jon Steinhart wrote: > > Toby Thain writes: > > > Just don't move on without some limit. There are real > > > cognitive/typographic reasons why excessively long lines hurt > > > comprehension. This is why both 500 year old books and 5 month old books > > > have narrow measures. > > > > > > 80 might be too narrow for most, but at some point beyond 132 is "too > > > far". :) > > > > Well, I would claim that books have technological limitations that are > > different than computer monitors. It's a matter of doing what's appropriate > > instead of taking a dogmatic approach. > > > > I will point out that while it's sometimes a pain, the reader/writer ratio > > is a major driving force. I save on typing and use very terse code when > > writing stuff for myself. But, when writing stuff where there are many > > readers I feel that it's my job to put in the extra work to make it more > > accessible to the reader, partly because I don't want the readers bugging me. > > So for the Nth time, there are people who read, I'm one of them, > by looking down the middle of the text and getting the rest through > peripheral vision. I read easily 3-4x faster than a decently fast reader > and I get enough info that I can find the place where I need to go read > more closely later. > > I can't imagine I'm the only person who does this, I'm special but not > that special :) So for me, wider is optimizing me out, not optimizing > for me. Well, as someone who also reads I don't really understand how your point relates to 80 columns. It sounds to me that you're making an argument for something else in which I strongly believe, which is that the block structure of the code should be clearly visible so that a reader doesn't have to read every line in order to understand what's going on. As an example, I abhor styles that say that continuations of long lines should be indented either an extra tab or right-aligned with the first line. Both of those styles break the visible block structure. Jon