Why wrap @ 80?

[Taavi Burns]

On Fri, Apr 23, 2004 at 11:28:41AM -0400, Noah John Gellner wrote:
> Why do we wrap text at 80 columns on TLUG, and elsewhere on the Net for

We don't.  We wrap our columns at 66 characters, as suggested by
Nettiquette.

> that matter? I know that if your mailreader doesn't autowrap it can be
> unpleasant to read, but don't the vast majority of readers wrap? The
(and for dramatic effect)
> that matter? I know that if your mailreader doesn't autowrap it
> can be unpleasant to read, but don't the vast majority of
> readers wrap? The

They do, but it can still be a bit unsightly because not everyone
wraps exactly the same way.

> advantage of not wrapping is that fwds, replies, and follow-ups don't
> get funky formatting due to the hard carriage returns. 

That's why we do 66 characters, and why forwards should NOT
include any sort of prebits.

> I would be very happy to disable hard wordwrapping on vi.

Then turn it off and use soft wrapping.  The only trick there is
that when you tell it to move down a line, it'll move down a
paragraph instead.  If you're using vim, though, there's a very
neat solution to ugly wrapping: gqap
That will reformat the paragraph using your current textwidth
settings AND it will reformat most common reply indicators.  See
above what it can do for you (under "for dramatic effect")!

I agree that it's a horrible problem.  People should never have
been forced to add implicit carriage returns in e-mail, as clients
should always have wrapped appropriately.  The reply structure
then gets a bit ugly; that's where the text format itself breaks
down because it relies on custom to define the structure instead
of metadata to define the different contexts.  This kind of thing
was never a problem in the past, because everyone followed
standard procedures, or at least had secretaries that knew the
standard procedures.  The curse of desktop publishing and webpages
and all is the mass of people who each think that he/she knows
better.  That's why you get 12 font documents, and people who use
LaTeX complain so bitterly.  Vi should probably also have a "when
I say down I mean by one line that I see, not by one \n delimitedl
ine" for the purposes of editing text documents instead of config
files or code.  Maybe it does and I'm ignorant and nobody ever
thought to get mutt to do that by default.

I just started reading The Humane Interface.  I think it's already
rubbing off on me.  ;)

</rant>

-- 
taa

   The most critical and formative experiences are those provided
   to the developing child in the incubator of the family and,
   optimally, by a vital, invested community.
         --Bruce D. Perry
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