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Re: The Tyranny of the Hollerith Punched Card

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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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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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