Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Re: How does arch/tla handle encodings?

[Tom Lord]

    > From: Aaron Bentley <address@hidden>

    > Tom Lord wrote:

    > > Please learn to format/structure your code more like me.  No, that
    > > isn't an ego thing.  I *will* write up a fresh coding standards
    > > document with some rationales attached (since nobody gets all the
    > > (non-randomly chosen) details right).  For now, please try harder to
    > > fake it.

    > Okay, I'm happy to do that.  Do you prefer 79-char widths?  

It varies depending on context.  In most parts of header files and in
declarations (including function declarations which are part of a
function definition) I prefer --- I forget off the top of my
head.... around 65 or 66 character widths.  This relates to content
that needs to be printed, verbatim, in a largish font, on a normal
piece of paper, in portrait orientation.

In the bodies of functions -- and yes, this is something that freaks
some people out -- I prefer something in the range of 160-240
characters: the width that fits on a screen.

Prior to ttys, wider lines were there.   Post ttys, wider lines were
there.   Classical ttys are an environmental disaster.    Basically, I
don't care (for many purposes) about the width of a vt52.   As for
printing: imaging-based printers can handle wide code with no problem:
landscape mode is always handy for printing code.  In a pinch, there's 
always line printers.

My gosh: programmers should really learn to use big windows and the
tiniest fonts they can read.   The more information you compress on
to the screen (or page) -- the better off you are.


    > I'd been assuming something wider, based on code I looked at,
    > but your changes seem to wrap nicely in an 80-char terminal.

What editor do you use?  If the breaks don't go in insane place, plus
with the "harmonics" in my preferred 160..240 vs. 80-character lines
.... what you describe is a hardly surprising and happy accident.



    > > It's a "nobody cares about this stuff" file.

    > I'm not sure what you mean, but I can tell you there have been heated 
    > debates about user input stuff.

No, just the code.

Here, my own code ... all I can see are the flaws.   Hackerlab is
closest to good.

But....  go get a classic release of Tcl/Tk .... read the code for a
few hours..... then compare to cmdutils.c

Which of these two systems are you more interested in using, on the
basis of that comparison alone?

-t