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The Tyranny of the Hollerith Punched Card

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  The Tyranny of the Hollerith Punched Card Rich <rich@example.invalid> - 2014-06-08 06:02 +0000
    Re: The Tyranny of the Hollerith Punched Card Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> - 2014-06-08 10:46 +0300
    Re: The Tyranny of the Hollerith Punched Card polygonum <rmoudndgers@vrod.co.uk> - 2014-06-08 09:19 +0100
    Re: The Tyranny of the Hollerith Punched Card Richard Kettlewell <rjk@greenend.org.uk> - 2014-06-08 09:34 +0100
    Re: The Tyranny of the Hollerith Punched Card Tim Streater <timstreater@greenbee.net> - 2014-06-08 14:11 +0100
      Re: The Tyranny of the Hollerith Punched Card Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2014-06-08 16:44 +0100
        Re: The Tyranny of the Hollerith Punched Card Tim Streater <timstreater@greenbee.net> - 2014-06-08 17:01 +0100
          Re: The Tyranny of the Hollerith Punched Card Mike Spencer <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> - 2014-06-08 16:44 -0300
            Re: The Tyranny of the Hollerith Punched Card arnold@skeeve.com (Aharon Robbins) - 2014-06-08 20:04 +0000
              Re: The Tyranny of the Hollerith Punched Card Bob Eager <news0002@eager.cx> - 2014-06-08 20:20 +0000
                Re: The Tyranny of the Hollerith Punched Card Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2014-06-09 04:14 +0100
            Re: The Tyranny of the Hollerith Punched Card Louis Krupp <lkrupp@nospam.pssw.com.invalid> - 2014-06-09 01:01 -0600
              Re: The Tyranny of the Hollerith Punched Card Mike Spencer <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> - 2014-06-10 15:40 -0300
            Re: The Tyranny of the Hollerith Punched Card Paul Sture <nospam@sture.ch> - 2014-06-09 19:17 +0200
          Re: The Tyranny of the Hollerith Punched Card Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2014-06-09 04:09 +0100
            Re: The Tyranny of the Hollerith Punched Card Tim Streater <timstreater@greenbee.net> - 2014-06-09 10:39 +0100
    Re: The Tyranny of the Hollerith Punched Card RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> - 2014-06-09 10:15 +0000
      Re: The Tyranny of the Hollerith Punched Card Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> - 2014-06-09 13:45 +0300
        Re: The Tyranny of the Hollerith Punched Card RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> - 2014-06-09 13:38 +0000
    Re: The Tyranny of the Hollerith Punched Card mick <invalid@invalid.invalid> - 2014-06-13 08:09 +0000
      Re: The Tyranny of the Hollerith Punched Card "BartC" <bc@freeuk.com> - 2014-06-13 09:45 +0100
      Re: The Tyranny of the Hollerith Punched Card Rich <rich@example.invalid> - 2014-06-13 10:18 +0000
        Re: The Tyranny of the Hollerith Punched Card "BartC" <bc@freeuk.com> - 2014-06-13 14:29 +0100
        Re: The Tyranny of the Hollerith Punched Card scott@alfter.diespammersdie.us (Scott Alfter) - 2014-06-13 21:07 +0000

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#3552 — The Tyranny of the Hollerith Punched Card

http://pub.gajendra.net/2012/09/hollerith_tyranny

   ...

   "Now fast-forward to the 21st century; a mere couple of thousand
    years after Caesar. Look at your screen. How wide is your terminal
    window or the text window of your editor? 80 columns? Yeah, I
    thought so. Most people's are. And lots of coding standards in lots
    of organizations mandate this. For example, here is an excerpt from
    the Linux kernel coding style:"

        "The limit on the length of lines is 80 columns and this is a
         strongly preferred limit."

        "Statements longer than 80 columns will be broken into sensible
         chunks. Descendants are always substantially shorter than the
         parent and are placed substantially to the right. The same
         applies to function headers with a long argument list. Long
         strings are as well broken into shorter strings. The only
         exception to this is where exceeding 80 columns significantly
         increases readability and does not hide information."

   "Granted, the Linux folks give one an escape hatch for when it would
    be really problematic. But still ask yourself: why? Why 80 columns?
    Why not 100, or 120, or 60?"

   ...

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#3554

Rich <rich@example.invalid>:

>    "Granted, the Linux folks give one an escape hatch for when it would
>     be really problematic. But still ask yourself: why? Why 80 columns?
>     Why not 100, or 120, or 60?"

My screen is usually divided up as follows:

       +----------------------+--------+
       |                      |        |
       |                      |        |
       |    web browser       | editor |
       |                      |        |
       |                      |        |
       |                      |        |
       +----------------------+--------+

or:

       +--------+----+--------+--------+
       | ter-   |    |        |        |
       | minal  |    |        |        |
       +--------+    | editor | editor |
       +--------+    |        |        |
       | ter-   |    |        |        |
       | minal  |    |        |        |
       +--------+----+--------+--------+

That's made possible by the 80-column limit.

In a word, I like it and meticulously enforce it in my code.


Marko

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#3555

On 08/06/2014 07:02, Rich wrote:
> http://pub.gajendra.net/2012/09/hollerith_tyranny
>
>     ...
>
>     "Now fast-forward to the 21st century; a mere couple of thousand
>      years after Caesar. Look at your screen. How wide is your terminal
>      window or the text window of your editor? 80 columns? Yeah, I
>      thought so. Most people's are. And lots of coding standards in lots
>      of organizations mandate this. For example, here is an excerpt from
>      the Linux kernel coding style:"
>
>          "The limit on the length of lines is 80 columns and this is a
>           strongly preferred limit."
>
>          "Statements longer than 80 columns will be broken into sensible
>           chunks. Descendants are always substantially shorter than the
>           parent and are placed substantially to the right. The same
>           applies to function headers with a long argument list. Long
>           strings are as well broken into shorter strings. The only
>           exception to this is where exceeding 80 columns significantly
>           increases readability and does not hide information."
>
>     "Granted, the Linux folks give one an escape hatch for when it would
>      be really problematic. But still ask yourself: why? Why 80 columns?
>      Why not 100, or 120, or 60?"
>
>     ...
>
However, when real punched cards were in use, the content was frequently 
limited to 72 or fewer columns due to use of some columns for things 
such as sequence number. Cobol used the 1-6 for a line sequence number, 
7 as a continuation mark, 8-11 for special purposes and 73 - 80 were for 
"program name" or other uses. So 80 editable columns already provides a 
wider area than we used to have.

Also, Hollerith himself appears to have used many different column widths.

The fundamental issue with using wider displays is when people view them 
expecting only 80 columns and miss the extra characters. Or find it 
awkward scrolling their viewer/editor for the exceptions. Or have to 
re-organise their take on windows to allow for the extra width.

-- 
Rod

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#3558

Rich <rich@example.invalid> writes:
> http://pub.gajendra.net/2012/09/hollerith_tyranny
[...]

    Further, I claim that insistence on these rules, and the ugly and
    awkward line breaks they cause, decreases understanding and hinders
    accessibility. Visual line breaks in the middle of programming
    statements put cognitive load on the reader.

That’s question of how you lay it out, really.

I’d agree that code that does something simple shouldn’t normally have a
line break in it.  But if it takes more than 80 columns to do something
simple then I’d argue that there’s a more fundamental problem than a few
unwanted line breaks.

Code that does something nontrivial is likely to be more readable when
spread across several lines than when compressed into a single line.
(When it’s more than a single statement or expression this isn’t
remotely controversial, of course.)

Last time I was in a coding standards meeting the main request was not
that we adopt a particular standard but that we adopt _some_ standard.
(In theory we did so long ago but it’s not always been consistently
followed and it’s currently a good time to re-examine the whole
question.)  My colleagues wanted to be able to set up their environments
in a consistent way and then, as far as possible, forget about the whole
issue.  Accepting an essentially arbitrary convention frees us to get on
with more productive work.

-- 
http://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/

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#3559

In article <ln0ua6$ajo$1@dont-email.me>, Rich <rich@example.invalid>
wrote:

> http://pub.gajendra.net/2012/09/hollerith_tyranny
> 
>    ...
> 
>    "Now fast-forward to the 21st century; a mere couple of thousand
>     years after Caesar. Look at your screen. How wide is your terminal
>     window or the text window of your editor? 80 columns? Yeah, I
>     thought so. Most people's are.

Mine is close to 200.

-- 
"People don't buy Microsoft for quality, they buy it for compatibility
with what Bob in accounting bought last year. Trace it back - they buy
Microsoft because the IBM Selectric didn't suck much" - P Seebach, afc

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#3561

Tim Streater <timstreater@greenbee.net> writes:

> In article <ln0ua6$ajo$1@dont-email.me>, Rich <rich@example.invalid>
> wrote:
>
>> http://pub.gajendra.net/2012/09/hollerith_tyranny
>>
>>    ...
>>
>>    "Now fast-forward to the 21st century; a mere couple of thousand
>>     years after Caesar. Look at your screen. How wide is your terminal
>>     window or the text window of your editor? 80 columns? Yeah, I
>>     thought so. Most people's are.
>
> Mine is close to 200.

Don't you find the long lines hard to read?

-- 
Ben.

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#3565

In article
<0.2a45f5616c4d4b675888.20140608164402BST.87vbsbl83h.fsf@bsb.me.uk>,
Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> wrote:

> Tim Streater <timstreater@greenbee.net> writes:
> 
> > In article <ln0ua6$ajo$1@dont-email.me>, Rich <rich@example.invalid>
> > wrote:
> >
> >> http://pub.gajendra.net/2012/09/hollerith_tyranny
> >>
> >>    ...
> >>
> >>    "Now fast-forward to the 21st century; a mere couple of thousand
> >>     years after Caesar. Look at your screen. How wide is your terminal
> >>     window or the text window of your editor? 80 columns? Yeah, I
> >>     thought so. Most people's are.
> >
> > Mine is close to 200.
> 
> Don't you find the long lines hard to read?

I start most comments at column 80.

Lessee now. Yerss, I can get to col 207 if I fullscreen TextWrangler.

Having suffered the 80 col cards and then 24 x 80 screen in my yoof,
life was slightly improved used Ann Arbor Ambassador terminals which
had a 43-line screen mode.

Now, even my Terminal windows are 116 cols wide. Plenty of room on
screens these days for two such windows (with 4 tabs in each, so 8
login sessions) side-by-side.

A 24 x 80 Terminal window is just a joke.

-- 
"If you're not able to ask questions and deal with the answers without feeling 
that someone has called your intelligence or competence into question, don't 
ask questions on Usenet where the answers won't be carefully tailored to avoid
tripping your hair-trigger insecurities."                  - D M Procida, UCSM

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#3569

For a few years in the early 90s. I had a DecWriter II rescued from a
junk heap. It printed 132 columns.  I found it useful for printing
ASCII charts and diagrams, e.g. the ASCII map of BITNET amd a
tediously generated chart of connections in an on-line (at that time,
on-BBS) game.

For my still-4:3-CRT displays, 80 columns of fixed-width fonts is
useful, predictable and non-annoying. Eventually, of course, I'll have
a wide flat-screen but then I'll be able to fit two easy-to-read
xterms or Emacsen on one screen.

And for misty nostalgia, I have a line editor that displays an 80 col
card, punches holes as I type, collects virtual chad at the bottom of
the screen, slides new cards on from the right and saves the
text. Fully functional including removing cards and inserting new ones
in mid-deck.  Made it just to show the young 'uns what Real Computing
used to was.

-- 
Mike Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada

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#3571

In article <87a99ndw50.fsf@nudel.nodomain.nowhere>,
Mike Spencer  <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> wrote:
>And for misty nostalgia, I have a line editor that displays an 80 col
>card, punches holes as I type, collects virtual chad at the bottom of
>the screen, slides new cards on from the right and saves the
>text. Fully functional including removing cards and inserting new ones
>in mid-deck.  Made it just to show the young 'uns what Real Computing
>used to was.

That sounds cool. How can I get a copy? Please email me offline.
-- 
Aharon (Arnold) Robbins 			arnold AT skeeve DOT com
P.O. Box 354		Home Phone: +972 8 979-0381
Nof Ayalon
D.N. Shimshon 9978500	ISRAEL

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#3572

On Sun, 08 Jun 2014 20:04:34 +0000, Aharon Robbins wrote:

> In article <87a99ndw50.fsf@nudel.nodomain.nowhere>,
> Mike Spencer  <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> wrote:
>>And for misty nostalgia, I have a line editor that displays an 80 col
>>card, punches holes as I type, collects virtual chad at the bottom of
>>the screen, slides new cards on from the right and saves the text. Fully
>>functional including removing cards and inserting new ones in mid-deck. 
>>Made it just to show the young 'uns what Real Computing used to was.
> 
> That sounds cool. How can I get a copy? Please email me offline.

Same here. Would love to show my students.	



-- 
Using UNIX since v6 (1975)...

Use the BIG mirror service in the UK:
 http://www.mirrorservice.org

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#3580

Bob Eager <news0002@eager.cx> writes:

> On Sun, 08 Jun 2014 20:04:34 +0000, Aharon Robbins wrote:
>
>> In article <87a99ndw50.fsf@nudel.nodomain.nowhere>,
>> Mike Spencer  <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> wrote:
>>>And for misty nostalgia, I have a line editor that displays an 80 col
>>>card, punches holes as I type, collects virtual chad at the bottom of
>>>the screen, slides new cards on from the right and saves the text. Fully
>>>functional including removing cards and inserting new ones in mid-deck. 
>>>Made it just to show the young 'uns what Real Computing used to was.
>> 
>> That sounds cool. How can I get a copy? Please email me offline.
>
> Same here. Would love to show my students.	

There's also this sort of thing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaVwzYN6BP4

-- 
Ben.

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#3581

On 08 Jun 2014 16:44:11 -0300, Mike Spencer
<mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> wrote:

>And for misty nostalgia, I have a line editor that displays an 80 col
>card, punches holes as I type, collects virtual chad at the bottom of
>the screen, slides new cards on from the right and saves the
>text. Fully functional including removing cards and inserting new ones
>in mid-deck.  Made it just to show the young 'uns what Real Computing
>used to was.

Please, may I have one, too?

Assuming you have the source, would it be possible to put it on Google
Drive?

Louis

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#3606

Louis Krupp <lkrupp@nospam.pssw.com.invalid> writes:

> On 08 Jun 2014 16:44:11 -0300, Mike Spencer
> <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> wrote:
> 
>> And for misty nostalgia, I have a line editor that displays an 80
>> col card, punches holes as I type, collects virtual chad at the
>> bottom of the screen, slides new cards on from the right and saves
>> the text. Fully functional including removing cards and inserting
>> new ones in mid-deck.  Made it just to show the young 'uns what
>> Real Computing used to was.
> 
> Please, may I have one, too?

Check your email. (assuming that demunging of your Usenet addy works).

> Assuming you have the source, would it be possible to put it on Google
> Drive?

Twenty-five years ago, I was telling my friends that they should
contrive to get email and Usenet.  They all said, "Ewwww, just tooo
geeky!  I hate computers."  One classics scholar even said, "There are
maybe 4 people in the world whose opinions I care about. If I hear
from the every few months, that's good enough."  Now the scholar is
teaching an on-line course and the others say, "What? You don't do
twitter? No facebook, no on-line shopping or banking, no gmail, no
U-tube, no cloud?  Whaddya, some kind of Luddite?"

No, I don't do Google Drive. :-)

-- 
Mike Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada

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#3589

On 2014-06-08, Mike Spencer <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> wrote:
>
> For a few years in the early 90s. I had a DecWriter II rescued from a
> junk heap. It printed 132 columns.  I found it useful for printing
> ASCII charts and diagrams, e.g. the ASCII map of BITNET amd a
> tediously generated chart of connections in an on-line (at that time,
> on-BBS) game.

The line printers of that era also had 132 columns.  If you had a DECwriter
nearby you could send small reports to that instead of the potentially
long treck to the the printer room.

A distinct advantage of keeping your source code to 80 columns was that
when printed on 132 column paper you had plenty of room to scribble
comments, flow charts, or whole chunks of code at the side of the original.

> For my still-4:3-CRT displays, 80 columns of fixed-width fonts is
> useful, predictable and non-annoying. Eventually, of course, I'll have
> a wide flat-screen but then I'll be able to fit two easy-to-read
> xterms or Emacsen on one screen.

An 80 column limit is still advisable for config files when you want to edit
them from a standalone console.

On my 22" wide screen I have room for three 80 column terminal windows
side by side, and another three below those.  I've been using that for
several years; if I got a wider screen I'd expand each window to more than
80 columns.

I think a bigger case for a wider terminal screen is to avoid line wrapping
of commands.  Editing a wrapped command can be especially tricky if spaces
happen to fall at or near the wrap position.

> And for misty nostalgia, I have a line editor that displays an 80 col
> card, punches holes as I type, collects virtual chad at the bottom of
> the screen, slides new cards on from the right and saves the
> text. Fully functional including removing cards and inserting new ones
> in mid-deck.  Made it just to show the young 'uns what Real Computing
> used to was.

I'll add my request for a copy of that please.  The above email address
does work.

-- 
You can't look at a glass as half full or half empty if it's overflowing.

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#3579

Tim Streater <timstreater@greenbee.net> writes:

> In article
> <0.2a45f5616c4d4b675888.20140608164402BST.87vbsbl83h.fsf@bsb.me.uk>,
> Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> wrote:
>
>> Tim Streater <timstreater@greenbee.net> writes:
>>
>> > In article <ln0ua6$ajo$1@dont-email.me>, Rich <rich@example.invalid>
>> > wrote:
>> >
>> >> http://pub.gajendra.net/2012/09/hollerith_tyranny
>> >>
>> >>    ...
>> >>
>> >>    "Now fast-forward to the 21st century; a mere couple of thousand
>> >>     years after Caesar. Look at your screen. How wide is your terminal
>> >>     window or the text window of your editor? 80 columns? Yeah, I
>> >>     thought so. Most people's are.
>> >
>> > Mine is close to 200.
>>
>> Don't you find the long lines hard to read?
>
> I start most comments at column 80.
>
> Lessee now. Yerss, I can get to col 207 if I fullscreen TextWrangler.

I don't follow this.  Is it an answer to my question or a more general
sort of remark?  I was not casting doubt on how wide some editor of
yours will go, it's just that I find long lines irritating to read and I
wondered if maybe you did not.

> Having suffered the 80 col cards and then 24 x 80 screen in my yoof,
> life was slightly improved used Ann Arbor Ambassador terminals which
> had a 43-line screen mode.
>
> Now, even my Terminal windows are 116 cols wide. Plenty of room on
> screens these days for two such windows (with 4 tabs in each, so 8
> login sessions) side-by-side.

Was the "mine is close to 200" just polemic?  116 is closer to 80 than
it is to 200.

<snip>
-- 
Ben.

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#3582

In article
<0.17c5d1ba219fe01ea16a.20140609040955BST.8738fekccc.fsf@bsb.me.uk>,
Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> wrote:

> Tim Streater <timstreater@greenbee.net> writes:
> 
> > In article
> > <0.2a45f5616c4d4b675888.20140608164402BST.87vbsbl83h.fsf@bsb.me.uk>,
> > Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> wrote:
> >
> >> Tim Streater <timstreater@greenbee.net> writes:
> >>
> >> > In article <ln0ua6$ajo$1@dont-email.me>, Rich <rich@example.invalid>
> >> > wrote:
> >> >
> >> >> http://pub.gajendra.net/2012/09/hollerith_tyranny

> >> >>    "Now fast-forward to the 21st century; a mere couple of thousand
> >> >>     years after Caesar. Look at your screen. How wide is your terminal
> >> >>     window or the text window of your editor? 80 columns? Yeah, I
> >> >>     thought so. Most people's are.
> >> >
> >> > Mine is close to 200.
> >>
> >> Don't you find the long lines hard to read?

You're making a value judgement about what constitutes a long line. I
don't find lines of, say 120 or 150 chars long too hard to read,
because they've not wrapped. What is hard to read are lines that have
wrapped or where the statement should be say 150 chars long, but the
coder has set himself an artificial limit of 80.

I should also state that for readability I use whitespace generously.

> > I start most comments at column 80.

By which I meant that, for the most part, my code is limited to the
first 80 cols. But if a statement needs to be longer than that, it will
be.

> > Now, even my Terminal windows are 116 cols wide. Plenty of room on
> > screens these days for two such windows (with 4 tabs in each, so 8
> > login sessions) side-by-side.
> 
> Was the "mine is close to 200" just polemic?  116 is closer to 80 than
> it is to 200.

The OP (or some facsimile thereof) was trying to insist that everyone
codes in a text editor window 80 cols wide or uses a Terminal window 80
cols wide. So I gave counter examples. I don't code in Terminal
windows, so comparing their width to my editor window width or the
width of punched cards is spurious. OTOH, I do use Terminal windows to
do things like dump out stuff from SQLite databases, where, if I've
asked for a number of columns, having that not wrap is nice. With 116
cols, I can nicely get two such windows on a screen side by side - and
as it's in its own space, there is no conflict with having the text
editor running permanently in another.

-- 
"Once you adopt the unix paradigm, the variants cease to be a problem - you
bitch, of course, but that's because bitching is fun, unlike M$ OS's, where 
bitching is required to keep your head from exploding." - S Stremler in afc

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#3584

On 2014-06-08, Rich <rich@example.invalid> wrote:
>
>    "Granted, the Linux folks give one an escape hatch for when it
>    would be really problematic. But still ask yourself: why? Why 80
>    columns?  Why not 100, or 120, or 60?"

Fun article, thanks for posting it.  It might be the quality of writing,
but the author comes across as somehow righteously indignant about the
whole thing, which seems funny to me.  Obviously, his choice of the word
"tyranny" has something to do with it. 

First of all, 80 chars wasn't just some arbitrary length chosen by
prehistoric computer scientists (they predate the title, actually), it
was a factor of usability that experience and practice showed worked.
As your eye drifts far enough rightward, it becomes hard to track down
to the next line, and reasonable, practical people settled on 80
characters because it made sense.  

When I was using Jedit to write a book manuscript, I too set the line
width to 200~ characters, but at other times, like reading email in
mutt, I'm happy with 80 character linewidth; it seems more readable to
me.  So maybe for this user at least, there's a distinction between
optimum width for writing and for reading.

I've not taken the time to look up the author, but he's probably a
youngish programmer.  He rails against the character width, and totally
misses the line return and new line phenomenon, which is also the legacy
of card punchers.  As for the "baud rate on an stty" comment, he was
clearly born at a time when the magic of serial connections and PPP were
handled by software, saving him the time from having to learn.  I took
the shallowest dive into learning about serial connections and came away
with a sense of amazement of how many intricate paramaters have to be
advertised, negotiated, and implemented in order to get two gadgets to
talk to each other.

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#3586

RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com>:

> When I was using Jedit to write a book manuscript, I too set the line
> width to 200~ characters, but at other times, like reading email in
> mutt, I'm happy with 80 character linewidth; it seems more readable to
> me. So maybe for this user at least, there's a distinction between
> optimum width for writing and for reading.

Also, what a waste of screen real estate when your code looks like this:

      +------------------------------------------------------------+
      | :                                                          |
      |  ::: :                                                     |
      | ::                                                         |
      |:                                                           |
      |                                                            |
      |:: :: ::::::::: ::::::: :::: ::::::: :::::: ::: :::         |
      |:                                                           |
      | ::                                                         |
      | ::::                                                       |
      |                                                            |
      | :::                                                        |
      |:                                                           |
      |                                                            |
      |:: :::                                                      |
      +------------------------------------------------------------+


Marko

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#3587

On 2014-06-09, Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> wrote:
> RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com>:
>
>> When I was using Jedit to write a book manuscript, I too set the line
>> width to 200~ characters, but at other times, like reading email in
>> mutt, I'm happy with 80 character linewidth; it seems more readable
>> to me. So maybe for this user at least, there's a distinction between
>> optimum width for writing and for reading.
>
> Also, what a waste of screen real estate when your code looks like
> this:
>       +------------------------------------------------------------+
>    | :                                                          |
>    |  ::: :                                                     |
>    | ::                                                         |
>    |:                                                           |
>    |                                                            |
>    |:: :: ::::::::: ::::::: :::: ::::::: :::::: ::: :::         |
>    |:                                                           |
>    | ::                                                         |
>    | ::::                                                       |
>    |                                                            |
>    | :::                                                        |
>    |:                                                           |
>    |                                                            |
>    |:: :::                                                      |
>    +------------------------------------------------------------+
>
> Marko


Good point.  When writing I frequently reorient my 1440x900 display
vertically.  I infrequently want wider screens, but I find it
tremendously useful to be able to see more of a 'page' (etc) as
possible.

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#3648

On Sun, 08 Jun 2014 06:02:46 +0000, Rich wrote:

> http://pub.gajendra.net/2012/09/hollerith_tyranny
> 
>    ...
> 
>    "Now fast-forward to the 21st century; a mere couple of thousand
>     years after Caesar. Look at your screen. How wide is your terminal
>     window or the text window of your editor? 80 columns? Yeah, I
>     thought so. Most people's are. And lots of coding standards in lots
>     of organizations mandate this. For example, here is an excerpt from
>     the Linux kernel coding style:"
> 
<snip>


I always thought it was a limit of the video generation on the monitors 
at the time. Using a 640x480 display, 80 columns allows for 8 dots per 
row on each character, allowing for nice easy dot generation in the video 
circuitry. Higher resolution displays are more recent but will, of 
course, handle more characters per line as there are more dots.

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