Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1757209AbYBVQDP (ORCPT ); Fri, 22 Feb 2008 11:03:15 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1754715AbYBVQC6 (ORCPT ); Fri, 22 Feb 2008 11:02:58 -0500 Received: from ra.tuxdriver.com ([70.61.120.52]:3507 "EHLO ra.tuxdriver.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1754678AbYBVQC5 (ORCPT ); Fri, 22 Feb 2008 11:02:57 -0500 Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2008 10:48:43 -0500 From: "John W. Linville" To: David Newall Cc: Bart Van Assche , Krzysztof Halasa , Adrian Bunk , Greg Kroah-Hartman , Roland Dreier , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, general@lists.openfabrics.org, Andrew Morton , Glenn Streiff , Linus Torvalds , Faisal Latif Subject: Re: [ofa-general] Re: Merging of completely unreviewed drivers Message-ID: <20080222154843.GC3067@tuxdriver.com> References: <5E701717F2B2ED4EA60F87C8AA57B7CC0794FFF1@venom2> <5E701717F2B2ED4EA60F87C8AA57B7CC0794FFFF@venom2> <20080221154951.GA28328@cs181133002.pp.htv.fi> <20080221210124.GD28328@cs181133002.pp.htv.fi> <47BE2985.6020305@davidnewall.com> <47BEDB3F.4090100@davidnewall.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <47BEDB3F.4090100@davidnewall.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.17 (2007-11-01) Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 2286 Lines: 49 On Sat, Feb 23, 2008 at 12:55:03AM +1030, David Newall wrote: > Bart Van Assche wrote: > > There is a reason to limit line length: scientific research has shown > > that readability of regular texts is optimal for a line length between > > 55 and 65 characters. > > Putting aside the point that we're talking code, not regular text, I've > heard that said before and I don't think it's quite like that. Perhaps > the numbers you said might assume various things such as the width of > the eye's field of view, the distance to the image and the size of each > character? I'm sure all those assumptions are baked-in to the estimate. Yet the fact remains that people's eyes are only so good and most people will be reading at similar distances from the screen. So I don't see any reason to invalidate those assumptions. FWIW, I find reading longer lines to be painful -- it is easier to loose one's place in the text. I would also echo a point Jeff Garzik made elsewhere that it is often beneficial to have multiple windows oppen side-by-side. Longer lines makes it harder to do that in a useful way. Instead the lines either wrap or just trail off the screen. See the output of sdiff for how this limits usefulness. > > My experience is that the readability of source > > code decreases when the lines are very long (more than 160 > > characters). > > The point is that the width, excluding leading and trailing white space, > is what really matters. Even deeply indented code can be a snap to > understand if you don't have to fight artificial line breaks. And we've > got a much wider -- and taller! -- space available than we had in the > old 80x24 (and 80x1) days. I'm not sure deeply indented code is ever a snap to understand. And FWIW, I'd rather deal with "artificial" line breaks than parameter lists that just stream off the side of the page. The line breaks make long parameters lists easier to digest. I'll sacrifice the occasional odd breakage of a long string. John -- John W. Linville linville@tuxdriver.com -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/