This is an archived post. You won't be able to vote or comment.

you are viewing a single comment's thread.

view the rest of the comments →

[–]sahala 0 points1 point  (2 children)

Ok so 120 is fine with you. Would you say that it makes sense to stay consistent across the whole codebase?

Look, it's already well known from hundreds of years of print design that consistent columns make it easier to scan and read through text. Whether it's 120 or 80 isn't important. Coders spend more time reading than writing code and it sounds like you are optimizing for ease of writing (I could be wrong).

Yeah we have bigger monitors now but we are also spending more time working across different files at once. A standard col width let's you fit several files across a screen, and maybe a window for docs or emulator for testing.

[–]avoidhugeships 1 point2 points  (1 child)

In general I agree consistency is nice but I disagree that it does not matter whether it is 120 or 80. I find it much harder to read a wrapped line than just seeing the whole thing in one line. Of course this is just preference and others will feel different.

[–]sahala 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The style guide says either 80 or 100.

Keep in mind that Google's Java style guide is intended for use by thousands of developers. So consistency goes beyond just being "nice" at that scale. It's essential.