[Tutor] How (not!) lengthy should functions be?

[Alan Gauld]

On 18/04/15 20:30, boB Stepp wrote:

>> line screens. Actual measurements has shown that function length (within
>> reason!) is not a major factor in comprehension or reliability.
>
> Would not your comments above apply to line length as well?

Actually no.
Research has shown that people's comprehension hits a limit with
lines around 12-15 words long. That's about 70 characters. So 
translating that (text based) metric to code means the 80
character limit is still quite sane.

Although I have written code with a limit of 130 chars (on an old VT330 
that had a "wide" setting and could print out on a 30inch line printer)...

But there is a reason most books are portrait format and use the
font sizes they do. (and why newspapers use columns). It's the
limits of human comprehensibility. A topic that has been studied
in some depth, not just in CompSci but also in graphics
design, linguistics and journalism.

-- 
Alan G
Author of the Learn to Program web site
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