[xwiki-devs] [proposal] Change the maximum line width in the codestyle to 128 characters

[Sergiu Dumitriu]

Vincent Massol wrote:
> +1 for 120.

Yes, 120 is better as 128 _almost_ fits in my Eclipse.

> Thanks
> -Vincent
> 
> PS: I don't understand the rationale for 128. I don't think it has to  
> be a multiple of 64 :) 120 is 50% more of 80 so it has some rationale...
> 
> On May 30, 2008, at 6:32 PM, Sergiu Dumitriu wrote:
> 
>> Hi devs,
>>
>> Vincent said that he wanted to propose increasing the maximum line  
>> width
>> for a while, but didn't get to do it yet. And since I want the same
>> thing, I'm writing the proposal.
>>
>> So, the idea is to increase the line width to 128 (or 120? I like 128
>> better), since:
>> - nice code uses descriptive variable/method names, which tend to be
>> quite long, so many method calls span 2 or more lines
>> - we're past the stage where developers have small displays that can
>> only display 80 (or 100) characters at a time
>> - right now the eclipse settings are at 98 chars, which is quite a  
>> silly
>> number, and changing to only 100 is not worth the effort, so while  
>> we're
>> increasing it, we can use a larger value
>>
>> Migration plan:
>> - first, change the xwiki-verification-tools (next Tuesday)
>> - we don't want to do a massive update, since it will probably create
>> conflicts with the local changes for each developer, and break  
>> existing
>> patches
>> - whenever someone changes a file, he should first do a cleanup and
>> commit the file without code changes, then a second commit with the
>> actual behavior fix
>> - never mix cosmetic changes with actual code affecting the  
>> behavior, as
>> it will be hard to review that change
>> - the copyright notice doesn't need to be updated
>>
>>
>> So, everybody agrees? Do we use 120 or 128?


-- 
Sergiu Dumitriu
http://purl.org/net/sergiu/