From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: don@DonHopkins.com (Don Hopkins) Date: Sat, 11 Nov 2017 00:59:44 +0100 Subject: [TUHS] 80 columns ... In-Reply-To: <201711101905.vAAJ5SpV031420@darkstar.fourwinds.com> References: <7wpo8rud7y.fsf@junk.nocrew.org> <60C45CFF-0B5C-4DAB-8936-BA27ECFFA487@gmail.com> <025501d3598f$008f19d0$01ad4d70$@ronnatalie.com> <201711101905.vAAJ5SpV031420@darkstar.fourwinds.com> Message-ID: Who’s heard David Beazley tell his epic Python hacking saga? He’s a true hacker’s hacker, who wrote SWIG, and eats, breaths and shits Python in his sleep. David Beazley: Discovering Python - PyCon 2014 Speaker: David Beazley So, what happens when you lock a Python programmer in a secret vault containing 1.5 TBytes of C++ source code and no internet connection? Find out as I describe how I used Python as a secret weapon of "discovery" in an epic legal battle. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZ4Sn-Y7AP8 -Don > On 10 Nov 2017, at 20:05, Jon Steinhart wrote: > > Nemo writes: >> On 9 November 2017 at 14:14, Ron Natalie wrote: >>> At least it’s not python where the indenting makes a semantic difference. >> >> And for that reason, I have never used Python. (I have a mental block >> about that.) > > I agree on Python but for a slightly different reason. In 1981 I wrote a > user interface for the Tektronix microprocessor development systems. The > executable plus all of the script data had to fit in memory on the PDP-11. > This was an exercise in byte-counting to make everything fit because of the > cost of overflowing a segment by a byte. Because of this I used indent > level as part of the scripting language. Got beaten to a pulp by other folks > in the group about it and had to waste a few precious bytes processing curly > braces instead. So I'm too scarred to be able to use Python without cringing. > > Separate from this, I think that the whole 80 column thing is a bit silly. > I have used 132 as by default for a long time now. Would go wider but just > because I have always found it worthwhile spending money on the best monitors > doesn't mean that everyone else can. Everything including my laptop is now > a UHD monitor which rocks! > > I feel that longer lines work better than one-character variable names. > And, longer lines are way more readable than wrapped lines. I have never > been fond of the notion that code should be broken up into functions for the > purpose of keeping lines short; I feel that code should be broken up into > functions if it makes sense to do so, for example if the functions are used > more than once. Writing for the limitations of the I/O device doesn't seem > to be a good paradigm. > > In any case, I don't think that being an old UNIX person means that one has > to live in the past. There was nothing magic about 80 columns; it was just > the technology of the time. Technology has changed, so move on. > > Jon -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: