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From: Richard Harnden <richard.nospam@gmail.invalid>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Which code style do you prefer the most?
Date: Fri, 28 Feb 2025 12:21:01 +0000
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On 28/02/2025 11:54, David Brown wrote:
> On 28/02/2025 10:00, Janis Papanagnou wrote:
>> On 27.02.2025 16:47, David Brown wrote:
>>> On 27/02/2025 06:57, Janis Papanagnou wrote:
>>>> On 26.02.2025 20:56, David Brown wrote:
>>>>> On 26/02/2025 18:13, Janis Papanagnou wrote:
> 
> (I'm snipping part of this - I don't think it is really going anywhere, 
> and certainly not anywhere topical for the group!)
> 
>>> Doing too much in
>>> one line of code makes it hard to understand - regardless of how many
>>> characters it actually uses.
>>
>> I think we should abandon speaking about it in terms of characters.
>>
> 
> Agreed.
> 
>> (I think we agreed that readability is the key, not a hard or soft
>> column limit; typically used number of columns are nonetheless based
>> on cultural - you may say also technical; still based on cultural -
>> sensible heuristics. But habits seem to run out of control "lately".)
>>
> 
> Yes.
> 
>>> Taking something that is logically one
>>> operation or expression and artificially splitting it into two (or more)
>>> lines to suit an arbitrary line length limit also makes the code hard to
>>> understand. [...]
>>
>> This may be the case or not. - That's the whole point; to organize the
>> code to become clear. - A split may make it even better readable. (But
>> a _misplaced_ split may make it worse.)
> 
> Sure.  It is the "artificial" splitting merely to fit some line length 
> rule that is the problem, not splitting in itself.
> 
>>
>> Is that split in your opinion reducing readability...?
>>
>>          if (sscanf (mutations, "r:%u,g:%u,a:%u,d:%u",
>>                      &mutation_rates.base,
>>                      &mutation_rates.genesis,
>>                      &mutation_rates.aging,
>>                      &mutation_rates.death
>>                     ) != 4)
>>
>> or would you prefer it for (better?) readability to be in one line?
>>
> 
> Splitting is fine here - it is natural and fits the flow of the code.
> 
> I might prefer to write it as :
> 
>      const int matches = sscanf (mutations, "r:%u,g:%u,a:%u,d:%u",
>              &mutation_rates.base,
>              &mutation_rates.genesis,
>              &mutation_rates.aging,
>              &mutation_rates.death
>          );
> 
>      if (matches != 4) {
> 
> since the "!= 4" bit looks a bit lonely and out of place in your code. 
> But that is perhaps just splitting hairs :-)
> 
> 
> 
>>>
>>>> Myself I usually operate on a minimum of two physical screens, and
>>>> (with my font setting) each one capable of displaying two 80-column
>>>> windows side by side.
>>>
>>> That seems small to me.
>>
>> Do you mean my screen or my default window size setting?
>>
>> I cannot help; I'm used to the two 24" screens that I have, and my age
>> and health does not allow to regularly use font's below 10pt (or so).
>>
> 
> I also have two 24" screens (on this computer), and my eyes are also not 
> as good as they used to be.  (In my youth, I used to write my notes on 
> 2mm graph paper - normal lined paper seemed a waste of space to me.)
> 
>>> I have no problem with two approximately
>>> 120-column windows side-by-side in my IDE,
>>
>> This actually explains your preferences; elsethread I wrote about my
>> observations of people using larger defaults for window sizes, and
>> specifically that I've observed IDE users to work with larger default
>> window sizes also regularly don't mind writing code with (even much)
>> longer lines.
> 
> I don't go overboard on line length, but I do like to have more room 
> than 80 characters, and I don't like hard limits.  One factor in this is 
> that a fair bit of my development is in C++ (on small embedded systems), 
> and namespaces and classes mean that the average full identifier length 
> is a fair amount longer than in C - thus it is natural for lines to be 
> longer.

Have your mental margin-bell ding at around 75 characters, and aim to 
thow a new line as soon a you can?