[haiku-development] Re: The 80 columns limit?
- From: "Alexander von Gluck IV" <kallisti5@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: haiku-development@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 02 Sep 2021 17:59:37 +0000
September 2, 2021 12:16 PM, "Mr. waddlesplash" <waddlesplash@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hello,
(Yes, there are more discussions on the development list this week
than normal ... sorry about that.)
At the risk of starting a bikeshed: do we think it is time to raise
the 80 columns limit somewhat?
There's going to be a lot of bikeshed on this one.
As I understand it, there were (or are) two reasons for this limit.
One is that more columns simply did not fit on the monitors or layouts
developers were using back in the days this limit was instituted.
Hopefully this reason is now no longer valid, for 80 columns at least.
80 columns is indeed the traditional width of a vintage terminal.
I've done a *LOT* of style fixes over the years for Haiku, and the
80 character limit does sometimes create some funky looking code
which would be a lot more readable if we had a "little extra" space.
(throw in 2-3 levels of if statements even with our 4-space tab and
if((statements->
begin.mask & B_TO_LOOK_LIKETHIS)
!= 0) || (unreadable
& B_PILE_OF_CRAP != 0)) {
*however*, if you open a new terminal in Gnome on Linux, the standard
default window width is still... 80x24.
Now.. I think saying there is a large population of users who open a
terminal and "don't resize it in any way" seems unlikely.
For context in Gnome terminal, if you open a new terminal and position
it to consume 50% of your standard-run-of-the-mill screen:
* 4k width: too many characters (waddlesplash)
* 1920 width: 118 characters (me)
* 1600 width: 98 characters
* 768 width: 83 characters (pulkomandy)
I think those show the absolute largest should be 90-100 characters.
So overall, I'm a -1 until Pulkomandy gets a bigger monitor.
Y'all should crowd-fund one for him.
-- Alex
Other related posts:
