[om-list] Column Count in Code

[Hendrik Boom]

On Tue, Apr 26, 2016 at 05:34:57PM +0200, burundanga at gmx.com wrote:
> At least in Entity.scala it seems like lines are wrapped at 160 characters, with any lines that go past this getting indented between 14x to 16x the normal indent. I'm assuming this variance is due to sloppiness and not design, which I'm not judging at all; we've all written sloppy code. But if I were going to make the indentation consistent across the codebase, what stylistic standard would this project aspire to? Semi-separate question: how would Good King Call feel about wrapping lines at 80 characters instead of 160?

80 has been standard line length for ages, and it matches the line 
length in some pulp fiction paperback book (I counted it once).
And I can't get more than a hundred columns on my laptop screen unless I 
make the font so small I find it hard to read. 

132 columns on 60's ad 70's era line printers, though, making room for 
framig information around the printed code.  Especally useful for 
assembly language listings, with the machine code beside the source 
code.

Actually, in the old days (and I mean the really old days) punched cards 
had 80 columns, and only the first 72 were used for code.
The remaining columns 
were used for sequence numbers so if you accidentally dropped the deck 
down a stairwell you could put them through an electromachanical card 
sorter and put them in order again.

Why 72?  The ancient 7090 system has a 36-bit machine word, and 
would read cards in row binary.  Software would transpose it and 
decode the columns into actual 6-bit charracters.  It for two 36-bit 
words to each row on the card, giving 72 cilumns read, and the remaining 
eight ignored.

-- hendrik

P.S.  Yes, I've been around a while.  I started using computers in 1963.