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The Case Against Character Count Line Limits

1 points| michidk | 11 months ago |blog.lohr.dev

3 comments

order

compressedgas|11 months ago

The entire point of a character line length limit is so that a diff doesn't have wrapping lines on a terminal. And so that most changes become line insertions or deletions rather than modifications of lines.

smidgeon|11 months ago

It probably all started with typewriters (and teleprinters).

Nope, it started with books where 500 years of typographic practice has taught us that anything above 80 characters a line quickly becomes unreadable.

sails01|11 months ago

Code is not read like a book, so not clear how relevant is that argument.

In my case being able to read more significant lines in one go, clearly helps me navigate and understand code better.

And I let my IDE (Jetbrains) to the wrapping based on the actual width of the editor windows at any time, it works really well.