Re: [gentoo-pms] Fill column

[Brian Harring]

On Sun, Jan 17, 2010 at 02:26:34PM +0000, Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
> 2010/1/17 Ulrich Mueller <ulm@g.o>:
> >>>>>> On Sun, 17 Jan 2010, Ciaran McCreesh wrote:
> >> Oh heck no. There's no excuse for using 70 or 80 columns for source
> >> code any more. My old laptop can fit 100 across the screen
> >> comfortably, which is much cleaner to work with.
> >
> > Some people use several windows side by side, and the natural width of
> > these windows is 80 columns because almost all code adheres to it.
>
> Almost all code does not adhere to it. 80 columns is a harmful legacy
> that needs to be abandoned now that we are no longer limited by 1970s
> terminals.

I'm not a particular fan of doing things just because of historical 
inertia.  That said, there are benefits to 80- namely, a shitload of 
source/text/etc is aimed at 80.  I'm not arrogant anything to claim 
"almost all code does not adhere to it"; I'll state the majority I 
work with on a day to day basis does however follow 80 w/ exemptions 
were appropriate.

Regardless, what works best for everyone is what should be used.  The 
'git blame' arguement would normally be valid, but in my opinion it's 
irrelevant in this case- it's a one time blip in tracing the source, 
further, the commit msgs used for PMS are of pretty varying quality 
thus decreasing the usefulness of blame.  Beyond that, blame is more 
of a source tool then text tool in terms of usefulness- I honestly 
can't think of the last time I had to do blame/annotate on PMS.

Either way, if the majority of folks find it easiest to work w/ an 80 
limit, go with 80.  I'd say the same if the magical number was 100 or 
unlimited.

Whatever makes it easiest for people to contribute and work on the 
document should win out- to be clear, I'm talking about the majority 
of folk not what best suits one person.

Personally, I prefer 80- if it'll help improve the source level 
reading of PMS and enough folks want it, I'm +1.  Barring that, +0.

~harring