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But no, 80-column terminals in 2020 isn't “reasonable” any more

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Re: But no, 80-column terminals in 2020 isn't “reasonable” any more

#191
post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even vim handles word wrapping well. A text editor which can't... well, it's a pretty poor text editor then, isn't it? That said, I don't know of many text editors (outside of notepad, and even that's gotten better lately) which don't offer options about how to (or not to) wrap text.

No text editor that I know of intelligently word wraps code. Vim doesn't and Emacs doesn't either.

If you modify breakat and a couple other options (foldindent, to make the autowrapped lines stand out from the others), you can make vim’s autowrapping a lot nicer for word-wrapping code.

Re: But no, 80-column terminals in 2020 isn't “reasonable” any more

#192
post #16

I find as I get older that I need to use bigger fonts in order to easily read code. Based on my terminal font, I can fit two windows side by side with 90 character line lengths, but if I have 3 windows, it would go down to 60 characters (though that's not something I commonly do). I also find diffs that involve changes to shorter lines easier to read compared to ones with longer lines. I wonder what he now thinks abo…

Yes! The thing about line width limit in terminal isn't about display resolution and size only. As a man who prefers big characters due to conditions I always vote for lower line width limit. It is starting to get really uncomfortable on lines longer than 100-120 chars.

Re: But no, 80-column terminals in 2020 isn't “reasonable” any more

#193
post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the thing to remember is that you don't need to have a rule of "lines must be no longer than this". Instead, it should be "aim for lines no longer than this", and then sometimes, you need longer because it makes sense in that specific case.

How can you make a linter for this?

If the author thinks it's okay, and the reviewer thinks it's okay, a robot that can't actually understand code doesn't need a vote.

Re: But no, 80-column terminals in 2020 isn't “reasonable” any more

#194

I see a lot of people saying that 80 char is a thing of the past, but that's not really my experience: My work machine is a macbook pro 13", I rarely have a second monitor (and when I do, I tend to have my browser on it). I get 2 panes of just under 90 chars side-to-side in VSCode, with a normal-smallish font. Am I in such a minority?

No, I currently work on a single screen laptop right now as well due to lacking the right cables to put together a multi-monitor setup.

I always feel like when people advocate 'no 80 column terminals period' they're arguing from the standpoint of having never had to use anything smaller than an ultrawide resolution display or three+ monitors. Larger lines are almost unreadable on my screen and any sort of word wrapping only makes it worse, so often I'm stuck with one file open at a time slowly jumping between files.

80-column terminals as someone else brought up is an accessibility issue.

Re: But no, 80-column terminals in 2020 isn't “reasonable” any more

#195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And his email client hard-wraps at 80 chars, because that's the standard of both Linux and Git mailing lists, because they send patches in emails. I like the irony :)

> patches in emails Cringe.

?

Re: But no, 80-column terminals in 2020 isn't “reasonable” any more

#196
I'd rather have 80 columns on a 4:3 ratio than 120 columns on 16:9. "A wide monitor is for" watching video, playing games, and putting larger diagonal numbers on the box. I miss turning one monitor sideways to nearly fit an A-sized document. And I miss those 120 extra vertical pixels from before 1080 became the standard. I think the only good and common option right now is 21:9 in a large size and resolution, you still won't get 1600 vertical pixels like with a 3:4 but 1440 is still useful and there's enough horizontal space you won't get distracted over nonsense like how many characters wide a line should be.

Re: But no, 80-column terminals in 2020 isn't “reasonable” any more

#197

Typical ill-considered comment from Linus, and surprising for someone getting on his years. Column width is an accessibility issue . I'm barely in my mid 30s and the average font size has been steadily creeping, maybe 1.5 pts per 5 years. I could tolerate 132 column files today, but by the time I'm 50 there is no way this will work, regardless of screen size

Buy a bigger monitor. Or get glasses. I'm 38, rocking a 43" 4k monitor. There's so much room. Scale things up or down to your comfort level. It's a pleasure if you use an editor like atom.

> I'm 38, rocking a 43" 4k monitor. There's so much room.

There's no more room on a 43" 3840 x 2160 monitor than there is on a 32" 3840 x 2160...

Re: But no, 80-column terminals in 2020 isn't “reasonable” any more

#198

Typical ill-considered comment from Linus, and surprising for someone getting on his years. Column width is an accessibility issue . I'm barely in my mid 30s and the average font size has been steadily creeping, maybe 1.5 pts per 5 years. I could tolerate 132 column files today, but by the time I'm 50 there is no way this will work, regardless of screen size

Buy a bigger monitor. Or get glasses. I'm 38, rocking a 43" 4k monitor. There's so much room. Scale things up or down to your comfort level. It's a pleasure if you use an editor like atom.

Is it a TV? If so does it work well for small text and are there any negatives vs a monitor?

Re: But no, 80-column terminals in 2020 isn't “reasonable” any more

#199
post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would be more sympathetic to 80 column limits if Linux didn't have indent set to 8 columns.

This was a solved problem with tab indenting. It's a bit unfortunate that space indenting won, but I understand why.

Not really a solved problem. Even if you set your editor to display 1 tab as 2 columns, another person may set their editor to display 1 tab as >2 columns. So even using tabs, a project has to set rules for tab width.

Re: But no, 80-column terminals in 2020 isn't “reasonable” any more

#200
post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even vim handles word wrapping well. A text editor which can't... well, it's a pretty poor text editor then, isn't it? That said, I don't know of many text editors (outside of notepad, and even that's gotten better lately) which don't offer options about how to (or not to) wrap text.

No text editor that I know of intelligently word wraps code. Vim doesn't and Emacs doesn't either.

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