Re: 78/80 chars perl line still a meaningful rule

[Ratazong]

Hi McA!

Despite having not only one, but two wide monitors, I still think its a good idea to keep lines in code short. That does not mean a hard cut on 80 characters, but to take care that it is not much longer. I have the following reasons

• I prefer reading "top-down" to "left-right" ... and that includes code
• my screen is usually filled with windows, so its good to have them side-by-side and still being able to see all of the code
• in some rare cases I print code ... and then I have a limit of characters per line (otherwise it looks akward...)

Am I just too old-fashioned?

HTH, Rata

[grizzley]

...and e.g. file comparison tools, which I use often to see what has changed. Two code windows side-by-side mean 160 characters already.

[Anonymous Monk]

Not to mention, the optimal width for reading prose is somewhere around 60 characters per line. The eyes don't need to track so far back when they reach end of the line and so on. (I'm sure there's research on this I can't bother to conjure up right now.) (See also: newspapers, magazines. They break their text into columns, too.)

Usually when I need to print text, I print two pages per sheet (A4) just to get the line lengths to something satisfactory. It also tends to save a bit of paper...

Anyway, code. My stance is that you can't achieve clean code unless you keep your line length under 80 characters. The widescreen monitor argument? Either put multiple code listings side by side, or pivot your monitor. 10:16 or 9:16 doesn't seem so wide anymore, does it?

(...those cheap monitors that use TN panels don't pivot so well...)