Yes, I used your information. Feel free to add more information gleaned
from it to the list of facts.
If your numbers weren't accurate, then it would be nice to get an accurate
number. Perhaps Greg Ewing might already have something useful for us to
use. I started to write a script to analyze the standard library and
quickly realized I should be using a lexical analyzer to weed out comments
and (funny enough) wrapped lines themselves from the analysis.
I took your numbers as a rough fact, using words like "Around", i.e. taking
what you said at face value. I am about to leave on vacation and don't have
the time to do the lexical analysis, otherwise I would! Any excuse to write
a useful script ;)
- Aaron
On Thu, May 21, 2009 at 12:27 PM, Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org> wrote:
On May 21, 2009, at 14:01, Aaron Rubin <aaron.rubin@4dtechnology.com>
Other new facts:
I think I need to cry foul here!
1) Around 200 lines of code even within the standard library start at the
10th indentation level (40 characters gone already)
2) Around 10 percent of unique variable names even within the standard
library have 15 characters or more
These look like the numbers I provided, which I said were crude estimates
at best. If someone did a good count, I missed it, and I apologize. If not,
I wouldn't count them as "facts". Worse, you left off related numbers that
bias these: that's 200 lines out of 80000, and about 2 percent of all
variable references are to variables longer than 15 characters. But all of
those numbers should be considered tenative estimated, at best.
3) The origin of 80 character limit widths came from punch cards
What did I leave out?
That punch cards were available in sizes between 51 and 96 columns before
and after the 80-column card became standard, so this debate is older than
most people realize.
Many uses of those cards reserved the last 8 columns for card numbers, so
the practical limit was 72 columns, not 80.
Finally, the 80 column card became standard when most printers used
fan-fold 132 column paper, so someone felt there was a good reason to limit
the input line length even then.
<mike
Aaron Rubin