Re: [PATCH] SubmittingPatches: Increase the line length limit from 80 to 100 colums

hpanvin@gmail.com
2012-02-03T16:41:48Z

96 might be a better limit. Why? Because 80 and 96 are the easiest line lengths to achieve on a printer. 80 is typically the default, but with a 12 cpi font you get 96.

Tejun Heo <tj@kernel.org> wrote:

>Hello,
>
>On Fri, Feb 03, 2012 at 11:07:43AM +0100, Ingo Molnar wrote:
>>
>> * Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu> wrote:
>>
>> > > If we want to increase the standard to (say) 96 cols then
>> > > fine, I'd be happy with that. But until we do that we
>> > > should not create such a gruesome mess for those who use 80
>> > > cols.
>> >
>> > The kernel has *already* become a gruesome mess for 80 col
>> > users long ago. That was the main reason why I stopped using
>> > 80 col terminals two years ago ...
>> >
>> > So lets stop the pretense.
>
>I don't know. In my experience, a lot of code, especially core part,
>mostly follows 80 col limit. It shouldn't be too difficult to write
>up a script to count >80col lines in different parts of the kernel.
>
>> [PATCH] SubmittingPatches: Increase the line length limit from 80 to
>100 colums
>>
>> The overwhelming majority of kernel developers have stopped
>> using 80 col terminals years ago.
>>
>> As far as I'm aware I was the last regular kernel contributor
>> who still used a standard VGA text console, but both text
>> consoles and using them to read the kernel source code has
>> become increasingly gruesome years ago so I switched to a wider
>> terminal two years ago.
>
>People usually place multiple windows horizontally so it's not like
>all those extra pixels go wasted. 80col might even have the benefit
>of giving overall higher density in terms of pixel usage.
>
>> Worse than that, people are actively uglifying the kernel code
>> to fit things into 80 cols mechanically. They are using
>> checkpatch and are interpreting the 80 col warnings the wrong
>> way again and again, sucking up reviewer bandwidth that could be
>> utilized better.
>>
>> So lets increase the limit to 100 cols - this is a nice round
>> limit, and it also happens to match with most developer xterm
>> sizes. Code that goes over 100 cols for no good reasons will be
>> arguably something worth fixing. (100 cols is also arguably
>> closer to various brain limits such as vision of field and
>> resolution restrictions, so we'll likely not have to increase
>> this limit for a couple of million years, for all retro human
>> genome users.)
>
>That said, yeah, 80col is a pain in the ass and lessening the pressure
>a bit might make it a non-problem and 100 is one of the nicer numbers
>which aren't power of two.
>
>For me, the biggest reason to stick to 80col has been that, while
>being widely disliked, it still was the most common limit people were
>using and consistency tends to be more beneficial on these issues. If
>we're gonna do this, and I hope we do, let's proactively encourage /
>enforce it - ie. let's collectively nag so that 100col quickly becomes
>the standard.
>
>Acked-by: Tejun Heo <tj@kernel.org>
>
>Thanks.
>
>--
>tejun

--
Sent from my Android phone with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.