| I disagree with the author that the programmer can't interpret longer than 80 lines. we don't read programs like a 6 year old sounds out words. We read more like a 10 year old (and above) by sighting tokens. Simply put: the world is different than it was in the 70s and 80s and 90s (all decades I have programmed in). 1) screen width is generally wider
2) screen widths are generally exandable
3) identifiers are generally longer In today's world I see little reason to hold to the 80 character limit causing line breaks in what would other-wise be odd places. That all being said, we still have yet to realize an editor that displays source code in a programmers preferred spacing while saving the program in the repository's preferred spacing. THAT is the real issue, here -- that editors are not helping with this issue, wrapping and indenting code as the screen width allows. Your primary concern, with line-length, should be readability -- if your group decides 72 characters is the limit, well, so be-it, but I would press anyone who believes that is acceptable for JAVA. And I no longer see a reason why one line length limit should hold for all source files. Why not let the source code decide the best line length -- we no longer have fixed sized screens, these are windows that expand with click and drag. |