[comp.misc] Line lengths

peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva) (03/13/89)

In article <Mar.12.17.20.24.1989.29073@athos.rutgers.edu>, gaynor@athos.rutgers.edu (Silver) writes:
>   - LONG AND SHORT LINES (outside of something like [20, 80]) are more
>     difficult to read... [50-60 is best]

This probably depends on the format of the text, character size, and columns.
Newspapers seem to do just fine with ~20 characters per line.
-- 
Peter da Silva, Xenix Support, Ferranti International Controls Corporation.

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kjones@talos.UUCP (Kyle Jones) (03/15/89)

gaynor@athos.rutgers.edu (Silver) writes:
>   - LONG AND SHORT LINES (outside of something like [20, 80]) are more
>     difficult to read... [50-60 is best]

Peter da Silva) writes:
>This probably depends on the format of the text, character size, and columns.
>Newspapers seem to do just fine with ~20 characters per line.

Newspapers do what they have to do pile as much stuff on a page as
they can.  Text layout suffers as a result.  Too narrow columns,
w i d e   s  p  a   c   i  n  g, irregular vertical spacing and so on.
But you can't expect the world for 25 cents.

kwb@hpmtlx.HP.COM ($Keith Blackwell) (03/17/89)

Well, how's this for tolerance:
I use BOTH vi AND emacs (gnuvo) regularly and frequently.  Vi has a
few minor advantages that I like to take advantage of when editing
short files.  I haven't used some of the more advanced features of
vi, but its drawbacks are enough to make emacs my "preferred" editor.
Auto-save is an important feature that many vi users I have known
have wished they had had --- after a disaster (yes, even competant
vi users occassionally make stupid mistakes).
But the original posting DID have a valid point:

| AT&T should get together with Sammy Mitchell or
| somebody who knows how to construct reasonable modern text editors and
| come out with something up to 1989 standards for a text editor for V.4
The "standard" UNIX would do well to have a more advanced editor than vi.

| and just get rid of vi which, along with nroff and troff and a couple
This, however, is a dumb idea.  It wouldn't be UNIX without vi.
---
Keith "let's be reasonable, here" Blackwell