Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1754220Ab2BDNJU (ORCPT ); Sat, 4 Feb 2012 08:09:20 -0500 Received: from mx3.mail.elte.hu ([157.181.1.138]:53260 "EHLO mx3.mail.elte.hu" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1753278Ab2BDNJT (ORCPT ); Sat, 4 Feb 2012 08:09:19 -0500 Date: Sat, 4 Feb 2012 14:08:59 +0100 From: Ingo Molnar To: Andrew Morton Cc: Linus Torvalds , Cyrill Gorcunov , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, Pavel Emelyanov , Serge Hallyn , KAMEZAWA Hiroyuki , Kees Cook , Tejun Heo , Andrew Vagin , "Eric W. Biederman" , Alexey Dobriyan , Andi Kleen , KOSAKI Motohiro , "H. Peter Anvin" , Thomas Gleixner , Glauber Costa , Matt Helsley , Pekka Enberg , Eric Dumazet , Vasiliy Kulikov , Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu Subject: Re: [PATCH] SubmittingPatches: Increase the line length limit from 80 to 100 colums Message-ID: <20120204130859.GB30198@elte.hu> References: <20120130140905.441199885@openvz.org> <20120130141852.309402052@openvz.org> <20120203074656.GC30543@elte.hu> <20120203083530.GD1968@moon> <20120203090929.GA23996@elte.hu> <20120203012241.bcd3d0c8.akpm@linux-foundation.org> <20120203095227.GA13162@elte.hu> <20120203100743.GA3334@elte.hu> <20120203125715.0e9dfb1d.akpm@linux-foundation.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20120203125715.0e9dfb1d.akpm@linux-foundation.org> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.21 (2010-09-15) X-ELTE-SpamScore: -2.0 X-ELTE-SpamLevel: X-ELTE-SpamCheck: no X-ELTE-SpamVersion: ELTE 2.0 X-ELTE-SpamCheck-Details: score=-2.0 required=5.9 tests=AWL,BAYES_00 autolearn=no SpamAssassin version=3.3.1 -2.0 BAYES_00 BODY: Bayes spam probability is 0 to 1% [score: 0.0000] 0.0 AWL AWL: From: address is in the auto white-list Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 2739 Lines: 87 * Andrew Morton wrote: > On Fri, 3 Feb 2012 11:07:43 +0100 > Ingo Molnar wrote: > > > [PATCH] SubmittingPatches: Increase the line length limit from 80 to 100 colums > > > > The overwhelming majority of kernel developers have stopped > > using 80 col terminals years ago. > > > > As far as I'm aware I was the last regular kernel > > contributor who still used a standard VGA text console, but > > both text consoles and using them to read the kernel source > > code has become increasingly gruesome years ago so I > > switched to a wider terminal two years ago. > > I always use 80-cols, everywhere. Not because I particularly > like it - I find it a bit too small. I use it because it is > the standard, and using it helps me see where and how badly we > violate the standard. > > We've actually done pretty well - linewrap in 80 cols rarely > causes me problems. It's sufficiently rare that when it > *does* happen, it really stands out. Maybe it got better after the introduction of checkpatch - I stopped using 80col terminals because the situation *was* getting so bad and because i did not feel like fighting a thousand other kernel developers who had different preferences ;-) > IOW, the changelog is quite the exaggeration. You are right about that. > > So lets increase the limit to 100 cols > > I think that's going too far - 96 will be enough and it's a > multiple of 8. > > The multiple-of-8 thing seems pleasing but probably doesn't > matter much. It means that things like > > > if (foo) { > if (foo) { > if (foo) { > if (foo) { > if (foo) { > if (foo) { > if (foo) { > if (foo) { > if (foo) { > if (foo) { > if (foo) { > if (foo) { > if (foo) { > if (foo) { > if (foo) { > > > will line up properly. > > If we really want to improve the world we should jump into a > time machine and set tabstops to 4. Sigh. I think that would be a distinctly bad decision - people could have crazy, 10 levels nesting in a function and be technically 'compliant'. 8 col tabs _forces clean code_ more often than not. I know about very few functions in the kernel that legitimately need more than 3 or 4 levels of nesting. And that is why I agree with the 6-tab based warning approach - then we can remove the 80col warning which is really making things actively worse. Thanks, Ingo -- 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/