[m-users.] Coding style

[Julien Fischer]

Hi Ralph,

On Wed, 21 Jan 2026 at 17:30, Ralph Becket <ralphbecket at outlook.com> wrote:
>
> Happy New Year!

Happy new year to you too!

> About twenty years back, when I left Mercury to start in mainstream commercial programming, monitors were a lot narrower.  There was a strong feeling then that 80 columns was the Right and Proper Line Length.  Nowadays, of course, monitors are much more generous.  While I reject uncontrolled line lengths, 80 columns seems painfully tight.  (I think the Linux developers moved away from this some years
ago).  That said, when (back) in Rome, do as the Romans do.  So:
what's the modern community position on this?

In the Mercury project itself, it's still 80 columns (actually 79, due
to diff adding an extra character).

Outside of Mercury, I tend not to go beyond that too much (unless
horribly verbose things like Java
are involved).

Julien.