A desperate lunge for on-topic-ness

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Fri, 19 Oct 2012 11:21:06 +0200, Jean-Michel Pichavant wrote:

> Using 80+ char lines doesn't mean
> I put all my efforts exceeding the 80 char limit.

I didn't say it did. I was describing some of the reasons people might 
choose to stick to the 79 character limit, beyond the reason you gave, 
which quite frankly is the least important reason. 80 character 
terminals? Who still uses them? Well, a few people, but they're in a 
minority. But caring about the readability of code? Everyone needs to 
read code at some point, and 79 characters is a good balance between 
stuffing too much into a single line and spreading it out too thinly over 
multiple lines.


> As a matter of fact, I
> never get the char limit get into the way of readability. What needs to
> be short will be short, and what needs to be long will be long.

Code never *needs* to be long, because it can always be shortened.

Some code might be more conveniently written as a single long line. But I 
would argue that nearly never is code more easily *read* as a single long 
line, and since code is read much more than it is written, it is more 
important to optimise for reading, not writing.



-- 
Steven