Re: Question about commit message wrapping

[Michael Haggerty <mhagger@alum.mit.edu>]

On 12/12/2011 11:16 PM, Frans Klaver wrote:
> Wrapped code as in auto-wrapped? Or as in manually wrapped? Python
> programmers have significant white space, but you can still hard wrap
> stuff, as long as the next statement is properly indented.

This is incorrect.  Python statements can only be broken across lines
within unbalanced parenthesis (or using '\' or within a multiline
string).  For example,

    x =
        1

is a syntax error, while

    y = (
        1
        )

or

    f(1,
          2,
      3,
      4)

are both valid.

FWIW I think automatic wrapping of commit messages is a bad idea.  I
wrap my commit messages deliberately to make them look the way I want
them to look.  The assumption of an 80-character display has historical
reasons, but it is also a relatively comfortable line-width to read
(even on wider displays).  And given that commit messages sometimes
contain "flowable" paragraph text, sometimes code snippets, sometimes
ASCII art, etc, no automatic wrapping will work correctly unless
everybody agrees that commit messages must be written in some specific
form of markup (or lightweight markup).  And I can't imagine such a
thing ever happening.

As for "future-proofing", do you really think there will be a lot of
programming happening on mobile phones with less than 80-character-wide
displays?  (And even my little HTC can easily fit 80 characters if I
rotate the phone to "landscape" mode.)

Michael

-- 
Michael Haggerty
mhagger@alum.mit.edu
http://softwareswirl.blogspot.com/