Re: wrapping [was: Re: disable paragraph flows in mozilla?]
On Sat, May 18, 2002 at 01:04:19AM +0200, Hans Ekbrand wrote:
> On Fri, May 17, 2002 at 03:40:47PM -0700, Vineet Kumar wrote:
> > The reason most people
> > suggest 72 is that traditionally, terminals are 80 characters wide, and
> > 72 leaves enough room to be quoted with "> " four times.
>
> Although I actually have a terminal (can't say I use it much though),
> I sometimes wonder if email conventions should be derived from
> limitations of such ancient hardware. In some sense, its a good
> practice to require as little as possible from the clients, but is
> 80x25 a limit that anyone is facing anymore?
>
I have seen posts here mentioning hardware as limiting the size of the
text, but that's only part of it.
> I guess new limits come with pocket computers, mobile telephones, and
> whatever means people read their mail with these days.
>
> So, a better argument for wrapping lines at 72 chars would perhaps be
> that it make the text easier to read (even if you have real screen
> estate that could handle a lot more).
>
You are right.
There is also a greater point of aesthetics involved. If you have dealt
in Latex, one of the first things you learn is that lines longer than 76
characters, or thereabouts, are difficult to read. That's why newspaper
have columns, since the print is so small. You could probably pick up
any paperback novel and see that the number of characters on a line is
about 76.
I run a 132x60 mode console (vga=10), and I still prefer seeing my email
wrapped around at 80 characters, though for coding I often set that
limit to 100 characters. Running the console at this resolution helps
when I am viewing webpages with a tabular layout using links.
-Andy
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