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

Andrew Morton
2012-02-03T20:58:24Z

On Fri, 3 Feb 2012 11:07:43 +0100
Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu> wrote:

> [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.

I always use 80-cols, everywhere. Not because I particularly like it -
I find it a bit too small. I use it because it is the standard, and
using it helps me see where and how badly we violate the standard.

We've actually done pretty well - linewrap in 80 cols rarely causes me
problems. It's sufficiently rare that when it *does* happen, it really
stands out.

IOW, the changelog is quite the exaggeration.

> So lets increase the limit to 100 cols

I think that's going too far - 96 will be enough and it's a multiple of 8.

The multiple-of-8 thing seems pleasing but probably doesn't matter
much. It means that things like

if (foo) {
if (foo) {
if (foo) {
if (foo) {
if (foo) {
if (foo) {
if (foo) {
if (foo) {
if (foo) {
if (foo) {
if (foo) {
if (foo) {
if (foo) {
if (foo) {
if (foo) {

will line up properly.

If we really want to improve the world we should jump into a time
machine and set tabstops to 4. Sigh.