Is 78 characters still a good option? Was: [Haskell-cafe] breaking too long lines

[Neil Mitchell]

Hi

> I believe it is a good practice too keep each line short and
> easy to read.  The following is taken from python style
> guide.
>
>  Maximum Line Length
>
>    Limit all lines to a maximum of 79 characters.
>
>    There are still many devices around that are limited to 80 character
>    lines; plus, limiting windows to 80 characters makes it possible to have
>    several windows side-by-side.  The default wrapping on such devices
>    disrupts the visual structure of the code, making it more difficult to
>    understand.  Therefore, please limit all lines to a maximum of 79
>    characters.  For flowing long blocks of text (docstrings or comments),
>    limiting the length to 72 characters is recommended.
>
> http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0008/
>
> P.S.  We really need such a well written style guide for
>      haskell.  Python has this nice PEP (Python Enhancement
>      Proposals).  Should we start making our own HEP?

We have one: urchin.earth.li/~ian/style/haskell.html