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

[Thomas Davie]

On 25 Apr 2009, at 21:09, Jason Dusek wrote:

>  There will always be some people who prefer longer lines. The
>  real issue is, how do we deal with the fundamental
>  disagreement here? It's not like we can have both. Also those
>  people who like long lines -- will they all agree to a long
>  line length?

Is there a fundamental disagreement here?

There are those who are driven by an archaic standard from the width  
of the terminal screen, and there are those who are driven by the  
aesthetics of their code.  As always, opinions on aesthetics differ  
slightly, but overall, everyone seems to mostly agree that we should  
try to keep lines short where possible, but lengthen then when needed.

Bob