I’ve heard arguments that back in ye old days each row only had 80 characters and variable names were shortened so you didn’t have to scroll the page back and forth
I’ve already felt like I should choose shorter names in a (shitty) project where the customer asked us to use an auto-formatter and a max line-width of 120 characters.
Because ultimately, I choose expressive variable names for readability. But an auto-formatter gladly fucks up your readability, breaking your line at some random ass point, unless your line does not need to be broken up.
And so you start negotiating whether you really need certain information in a variable name for the price of badly broken lines.
Yeah, I meant it as an example, where I was still granted relatively luxurious conditions, but even those already caused me to compromise on variable names.
I’d say, 95% of my lines of code do fit into 120 characters easily. It’s those 5% that pained me.
I’ve heard arguments that back in ye old days each row only had 80 characters and variable names were shortened so you didn’t have to scroll the page back and forth
I’ve already felt like I should choose shorter names in a (shitty) project where the customer asked us to use an auto-formatter and a max line-width of 120 characters.
Because ultimately, I choose expressive variable names for readability. But an auto-formatter gladly fucks up your readability, breaking your line at some random ass point, unless your line does not need to be broken up.
And so you start negotiating whether you really need certain information in a variable name for the price of badly broken lines.
120 characters is quite much, though.
Yeah, I meant it as an example, where I was still granted relatively luxurious conditions, but even those already caused me to compromise on variable names.
I’d say, 95% of my lines of code do fit into 120 characters easily. It’s those 5% that pained me.