> From: Stephen Leake <[log in to unmask]>
> Simon Wright <[log in to unmask]> writes:
>
> > > From: Stephen Leake <[log in to unmask]>
> >
> > > Ada is a "tool for the next century"; let's not carry the "support
> > > legacy stuff" too far. There's no excuse for a line length limit of
> > > less than 120.
> >
> > I just checked some books, a paperback has lines of about 55
> > characters and a large textbook 85. Anything more can get quite hard
> > to read. And code is usually presented in a clumsy monospaced
> > typeface.
>
> I rarely read code on paper. I have a big screen; anyone doing serious
> software development should also have a big screen; they are getting
> really cheap.
>
> Printing code in landscape orientation easily accomodates 120
> characters.
The point I failed to make is that it is hard to read text that is set
in too wide a "column". I do accept that code is not the same as text;
it would be an interesting experiment to compare the readability of
text in various column widths. Likely to be very personal, of course;
but a project's standards have to be a team consensus ..