Re: [RFC] Increase libstdc++ line length to 100(?) columns

[Michael Matz <matz@suse.de>]

Hello,

On Sun, 29 Nov 2020, Allan Sandfeld Jensen wrote:

> On Sonntag, 29. November 2020 18:38:15 CET Florian Weimer wrote:
> > * Allan Sandfeld Jensen:
> > > If you _do_ change it. I would suggest changing it to 120, which is next
> > > common step for a lot of C++ projects.
> > 
> > 120 can be problematic for a full HD screen in portrait mode.  Nine
> > pixels per character is not a lot (it's what VGA used), and you can't
> > have any window decoration.  With a good font and screen, it's doable.
> > But if the screen isn't quite sharp, then I think you wouldn't be able
> > to use portrait mode anymore.
> 
> Using a standard condensed monospace font of 9px, it has a width of 7px, 120 

A char width of 7px implies a cell width of at least 8px (so 960px for 120 
chars), more often of 9px.  With your cell width of 7px your characters 
will be max 6px, symmetric characters will be 5px, which is really small.

> char would take up 940px fitting two windows in horizontal mode and one in 
> vertical. 9px isn't fuzzy, and 8px variants are even narrower.

Well, and if you're fine with a 5px cell-width font then you can even fit 
216 chars on a line in HD portrait mode.  But Florian posed the width of 
9px, and I agree with him that it's not a lot (if my monitor weren't as 
big as it is I would need to use an even wider font for comfortable 
reading, as it is 9px width are exactly right for me, I'm not using 
portrait, though).  So, it's the question if the line lengths should or 
should not cater for this situation.

> Sure using square monospace fonts might not fit, but that is an unusual 
> configuration and easily worked around by living with a non-square monospace 
> font, or accepting occational line overflow. Remember nobody is suggesting 
> every line should be that long, just allowing it to allow better structural 
> indentation.

The occasional line overflow will automatically become the usual case with 
time, space allowed to be filled will eventually be filled.


Ciao,
Michael.