Re: 80-chars limit

On Sun, 2003-10-05 at 21:34, Nicolas Cannasse wrote:

> programming, this limit can vary a lot. Fixing it to 80 chars is nonsense.

80 chars is in fact way too much. 65 is more reasonable.
That is the amount of reasonbly sized monospaced font text
that can be fitted on a book page.

Code should be readable in a fairly constrained viewport.
This has nothing to do with style, but with the limitations
of media.

I learned the hard way typesetting code for publication.
Actual code often goes way over the limit. However it
can be grossly inconvenient. For example I use Vim, and Vim
is super brain dead with horizontal scrolling. I don't fill
up the whole width of my screen with one editor window either.

Don't get me wrong, I often write code that exceeds sensible
line widths. But it is pain, because ALL my code is
literate programmed, and when I typeset it for LaTeX,
it complains bitterly every single time the right margin
is breached.

TeX is GOD when it comes to typesetting quality.
If TeX says badness 30000 for breaching a right
margin, you'd better believe it :-)




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