[Python-ideas] 80 character line width vs. something wider
Ron Adam
rrr at ronadam.com
Fri May 22 04:33:27 CEST 2009
Aahz wrote:
> On Thu, May 21, 2009, Raymond Hettinger wrote:
>> Aahz:
>>> Could you explain why you have so much emotion invested in this issue?
>> I'm mostly having light-hearted fun with it. The conversation wasn't
>> going anywhere from the start. I do find it funny that so many
>> think 80 is exactly the right number regardless of other whitespace
>> conventions or regardless of the language being used.
>
> If that's what you think people are saying, I don't think you are using
> sufficient care in your reading. It seems to me that people are mostly
> saying that eighty columns is enough for many purposes, there are
> problems that would come from increasing the number of columns, and there
> aren't any solid arguments that clearly demonstrate that the gains
> outweigh the detriments.
Well, on Ubuntu I use the gnome terminal which has line width settings of
80 and 132. It doesn't have any settings in-between. So I use 80X24
because it gives me plenty of room to see other windows.
Possibly if there was a 100 character width, I might use it. The 132
character width setting takes up too much horizontal room on my desktop.
I found that if I use small font sizes, I tend to lean closer to the
monitor than I should and that causes my neck and back to ache if I'm at my
computer for longer than a few hours. So although I can reduce the font
size and get a lot more characters across the screen, it is better for my
health if I don't do that.
Cheers,
Ron
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