[liquid_bluing]

This seems to be kind of a complex topic, with a number of variables. Here is a study:

How physical text layout affects reading from screen https://www.researchgate.net/publication/220208446_How_physi...

A quote from the Discussion section: "Most of the studies on line length report faster reading with longer lines, and point to the number of characters as the variable responsible for the differences, rather than physical line length (visual angle)."

The OP thinks that humans read thinner columns faster. Generally, this seems not to be the case, so maybe we should treat his main conclusion with some skepticism. In any case, it's probably best to refer to the scientific literature.

[thaumasiotes]

> The OP thinks that humans read thinner columns faster. Generally, this seems not to be the case, so maybe we should treat his main conclusion with some skepticism.

> In any case, it's probably best to refer to the scientific literature.

You might not think so if you read the literature review which takes up most of that paper. The literature covered is generally focused on questions of no obvious interest and then, even in its own terms, finds little or no effect. Particularly funny is the paper (Youngman and Scharff (1998), covered in §2.7) comparing the independent effect of physical line length vs physical margin length. Or in other words, they investigated whether it's faster to (1) read six inches of text with half an inch of blank page to the right of the text, or to (2) read six inches of text with a full inch of blank page to the right of the text.

The paper you cite also goes out of its way to express the authors' dismay over the extreme nature of one experiment invalidating the finding they wish to support:

> The study also fails to replicate [the finding of] Dyson and Kipping (1998a) and earlier studies that more characters per line can result in faster reading. The difference may be due to the extreme nature of the longest line, i.e. 132 characters in 12 point Arial (rather than 10 point Arial used by Dyson and Kipping). The line length therefore not only has more characters but is also physically longer because of the larger type size.

later:

> A setting with no margin would not be typical practice, but may have been included to assess an extreme of a variable in a similar manner to using 132 characters per line.

How unfair!

Of course, as I read your comment on Hacker News, it contains a line of 130 characters.

This paper isn't even trying to address the questions you think it's addressing.

[grey-area]

On HN, your line here is 200 characters in 9pth Verdana, so it's also pretty extreme (perhaps because I have a wider screen). Personally I find the max line length on HN really uncomfortable.

> nature of the longest line, i.e. 132 characters in 12 point Arial (rather than 10 point Arial used by Dyson and Kipping). The line length therefore not only has more characters but is also physically longer because of the larger type size.

I'd say anywhere from 50-100 characters is fine for line length, stray too far outside that and you're not allowing enough words to scan well, or have too many so that it's hard to jump to the next line.

[alkonaut]

> The OP thinks that humans read thinner columns faster.

Tbf, "reading faster" in the linear sense is probably not exactly the metric to use when writing text. When writing, I usually need to jump randomly a lot in the text to cross reference something (from the last paragraph, the last sentence, or the beginning of the current sentence). It's a kind of nonlinear scanning that I'm guessing could be more efficient in narrow column text, even if wider columns would be faster to read from beginning to end.

[speleding]

Your points help with discounting the claim that long lines read faster. But that does not say anything about OP's claim that short lines are better.

I'm not convinced by OP's argument "New York Times does it": pretty much any book does the opposite.

Perhaps we need more/better research.

For what it's worth, I set my screen to be very wide when I write because I like to write each sentence on a single line: it allows me to easily spot sentences that are too long, a mistake I often make.

[Narann]

The paper focuses more on reading. OP focuses on editing.

Both are very different mindset. The second is supposed to make the first enjoyable and fluid. When editing you need to keep the reading location (kinda “cursor”) and move back to some sentences to test the “fluidness” of the flow. When reading, you don't need to do this anymore. I suspect OP prefers short line length to avoid the cognitive load implied by “finding” words back and forth during the editing step.

[bambax]

> The OP thinks that humans read thinner columns faster. Generally, this seems not to be the case

Really? This is absolutely the case for me. I use "reader view" / "readability" in Firefox whenever possible and it's incredibly helpful.

[darkerside]

It's helpful to link the research here. Thanks.

I do wonder if scanning is different from sequential reading. When reading code, I'm most often looking for the right place to change or add something.