[ksh93-integration-discuss] final ksh93 integration code review

[Casper.Dik at Sun.COM]

>On 7/9/07, James Carlson <james.d.carlson at sun.com> wrote:
>> Josh Hurst writes:
>> > On 7/4/07, Peter Memishian <peter.memishian at sun.com> wrote:
>> > >         * 113-143: Please reformat to be 80-column friendly.
>> >
>> > Why? It may be appropriate for the 60' of the last century but today
>> [...]
>>
>> Because the style guide says so:
>>
>>   http://www.opensolaris.org/os/community/documentation/getting_started_docs/cstyle.ms.pdf
>
>That are Sun rules, not Opensolaris rules. It seems archaic today to
>have a 50 year old punch card-style 80-column limit. Computers use
>silicon chips, not vacuum tubes. Punch cards have been obsoleted,
>operating systems use more than 640k, disks can hold more than 4GB. I
>think the Slashdot article is right: A 80-column limit is history.

They're the OpenSolaris rules we took from Solaris.

And they are, IMHO, still valid rules; 132 character lines do not add
anything; rather, they annoyingly waste 40% of screen real estate.

Why do you think newspapers are set in colums?  Because we can't read or
follow long lines very well.

80 characters are a good compromise.

Changing to 132 requires *everyone* to change their habits; it limits the
amount of source code people can display on a single screen dramatically
(by 40% and that in many cases means 1 rather than two full width windows 
or 2 instead of 4.

"Archaic" is not a good argument.

It's like proposing to make all lanes on highways 50% wider "because the
width of a horse drawn carriage is an archaic standard".


Casper