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

Post by leghifla » Sat, May 30, 2020, 7:21 AM UTC

jacobsenscott wrote: post #128

dekhn wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you need reading glasses? I found I did (I'm 47) and it made a massive difference in looking at code- I can use a smaller font and experience much less eye strain.

I've also been buying a larger monitor every few years, as the prices drop. But I hated the 42" 4K I tried and returned it. The problem was the edges are just too far away. If I use them I end up with the same kind of neck strain I would get with a multi-monitor setup. So I only used kind of the middle section of the screen anyway. And at 42" 4K the physical pixels are just too big - everything is fuzzy. 32" 4K is th…

Post by 0-_-0 » Sat, May 30, 2020, 7:59 AM UTC

jml7c5 wrote: post #199

ASalazarMX wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Post by demosito666 » Sat, May 30, 2020, 8:32 AM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #111

avodonosov wrote: post #96

Optimal code line width has very little to do with monitor or window width. It's more of an anatomical restriction: the resolution of the human eye and the field of view. For example, if we had 10 meter-wide monitors we won't be able to see them entirely from a close distance. Increasing the distance will require to increase the font, so the number of characters per line we can use doesn't change much. Not so long ag…

Details matter. The way I'm set up at my desktop, my editor can fit ~320 columns. Which means I can fit four 80-column-wide files side by side. Three, if you account for line numbers on the margin. (I usually do two, because my code tends to go up to ~120 characters.)

Post by enriquto » Sat, May 30, 2020, 9:07 AM UTC

fouric wrote: post #175

ssivark wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really doesn’t matter. We must strive to separate content and presentation, so people could choose whatever presentation they like (and have the editor do the wrapping as desired), for whatever whimsical reason that is nobody else’s business. It’s crazy to keep having this discussion and debating what the “research” indicates. C’mon, haven’t we made any progress in forty years!? Everybody can have their own damn b…

This. The problem itself has nothing to do with the number of characters you have on a line - the problem is that the vast majority of programming tools today conflate content and presentation. The job of making sure the line length is reasonable is not up to the writer of the code - it is up to the tools that are used to read it. Lines should be as long as necessary, and then intelligently (i.e. syntactically-aware)…

Post by pas » Sat, May 30, 2020, 9:21 AM UTC

_ZeD_ wrote: post #183

RHSeeger wrote: post #171

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?