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Date:      Wed, 12 Jul 2000 17:39:55 +0930
From:      Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com>
To:        Martin Cracauer <cracauer@cons.org>
Cc:        =?iso-8859-1?Q?Wilfredo_S=E1nchez?= <wsanchez@apple.com>, Bill Fumerola <billf@chimesnet.com>, Mike Smith <msmith@FreeBSD.ORG>, Bruce Evans <bde@zeta.org.au>, FreeBSD Chat <chat@FreeBSD.ORG>
Subject:   Re: Email format (was: cvs commit: src/usr.bin/make arch.c buf.c compat.c cond.c dir.c for.c hash.c job.c main.c make.c parse.c str.c suff.c targ.c util.c var.c)
Message-ID:  <20000712173955.Y30262@wantadilla.lemis.com>
In-Reply-To: <20000712091710.B10785@cons.org>
References:  <200007120145.SAA19968@scv1.apple.com> <20000712122903.B30262@wantadilla.lemis.com> <20000712091710.B10785@cons.org>

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[moved to -chat before the committers get uppity]

On Wednesday, 12 July 2000 at  9:17:10 +0200, Martin Cracauer wrote:
> In <20000712122903.B30262@wantadilla.lemis.com>, Greg Lehey wrote:
>> On Tuesday, 11 July 2000 at 18:45:46 -0700, Wilfredo Sanchez wrote:
>>> Bill:
>>>>> From rfc 1855:
>>>>
>>>>     - Don't run off the end of a line and simply let the terminal wrap;
>>>>       use a Carriage Return (CR) at the end of the line.  Also, don't
>>>>       assume your screen size is the same as everyone else's.  A good
>>>>       rule of thumb is to write out no more than 70 characters...
>>>
>>>   Sorry, don't buy it.  I write a paragraph.  How it's presented to you
>>> should be the job of your reader, not the sender.  My reader deals just
>>> fine with long lines.  In fact, if you wrap to 70, and I have a window
>>> only 50 wide, your wrapping is quite annoying, because I then get all of
>>> these newlines in mid-line for no good reason.  Assuming everyone has an
>>> 80-wide display is bogus, or at least anachronistic.
>>
>> This doesn't have anything to do with memories of punched cards, if
>> that's what you're saying.  It relates to the restrictions of the
>> human eye.  Note that book layouts pretty much adhere to the 70
>> character recommendation.  Newspapers divide the text into columns
>> because the full width would be unpleasant to read.
>
> It's hard to insert the '>' in quotes when we don't agree on a line
> length

That's one of the reasons to agree on a line length.

> and I often have a > 80 chars window for mail reading in case long
> lines that must not be wrapped (tables) appear, but I don't want to
> have normal mail messages that wide, it's harder to jump to the next
> lines then.

I do exactly the same thing.  I have a 120 character wide window for
the same reasons, but normal text that wide is a real pain.

Greg
--
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