linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH] docs: Update the preferred line size to 100 characters

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Date:   Thu, 20 Jan 2022 11:55:46 +0200
From:   Sakari Ailus <sakari.ailus@...ux.intel.com>
To:     Steven Rostedt <rostedt@...dmis.org>
Cc:     LKML <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
        Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>,
        Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
        Joe Perches <joe@...ches.com>,
        Andy Shevchenko <andriy.shevchenko@...ux.intel.com>,
        Lucas De Marchi <lucas.demarchi@...el.com>,
        Jonathan Corbet <corbet@....net>, linux-doc@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH] docs: Update the preferred line size to 100 characters

Hi Steven,

Thank you for cc'ing me.

On Wed, Jan 19, 2022 at 04:06:42PM -0500, Steven Rostedt wrote:
> From: "Steven Rostedt (Google)" <rostedt@...dmis.org>
> 
> As commit bdc48fa11e46f ("checkpatch/coding-style: deprecate 80-column
> warning") states:
> 
>     Increase the default limit to 100 characters.  Not because 100
>     characters is some hard limit either, but that's certainly a "what are
>     you doing" kind of value and less likely to be about the occasional
>     slightly longer lines.
> 
> It's 2022, people are not using 80x24 terminals anymore (well I'm sure
> someone is, but they are the small minority).
> 
> Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt (Google) <rostedt@...dmis.org>
> ---
>  Documentation/process/coding-style.rst | 6 +++---
>  1 file changed, 3 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)
> 
> diff --git a/Documentation/process/coding-style.rst b/Documentation/process/coding-style.rst
> index 03eb53fd029a..73be9edffede 100644
> --- a/Documentation/process/coding-style.rst
> +++ b/Documentation/process/coding-style.rst
> @@ -101,10 +101,10 @@ Get a decent editor and don't leave whitespace at the end of lines.
>  Coding style is all about readability and maintainability using commonly
>  available tools.
>  
> -The preferred limit on the length of a single line is 80 columns.
> +The preferred limit on the length of a single line is 100 columns.
>  
> -Statements longer than 80 columns should be broken into sensible chunks,
> -unless exceeding 80 columns significantly increases readability and does
> +Statements longer than 100 columns should be broken into sensible chunks,
> +unless exceeding 100 columns significantly increases readability and does
>  not hide information.

As others have already opined, I agree that increasing the line length from
80 isn't going to make the code universally (or even mostly) more readable.
There are probably cases it does but this is not necessarily common.

I think the original text puts it well: there is a limit of 80 but that is
not a hard limit. When reviewing code, I often ask to wrap lines if there's
really no reason to keep them longer (in this case that seldom is the only
problem with the code). Of course you could argue what these reasons might
be. At the very least indentation has a higher precedence that the line
length. This is also written in the documentation.

My view is that this recommendation is not, at least today, relevant for
the purpose of making the code readable for someone with a VT100 terminal,
but a part of a recipe for writing good code simply expressed in units
everyone knows: VT100 terminal size. Also 80x24 is still the default window
size of many if not most terminal emulators.

-- 
Kind regards,

Sakari Ailus