On Sat, Apr 01, 2006 at 05:44:14PM +0200, Roland Mainz wrote:

> > I think you'll find that the C-style rules are not open for negotiation.
> 
> What do other Sun engineers think about this ?

The same.

> Yes, I agree that using "cstyle" is a good idea and even that enforcing
> cstyle's rules is a good thing. I did not argue that. My primary
> complait is the fixed line length which is very ugly. We're not in the
> days of Fortran 77 anymore... or are we ?

What does this have to do with anything?  Most actual terminals today
are still 80 characters wide, as are the default xterms on virtually
every OS distribution I've ever used.  People are still expected to
send mail wrapped at 76 columns; it's considered rude to do otherwise.
Why?  Probably because the important thing - humans' visual acuity and
processing - hasn't changed in the last 30 years.

Your argument falls into the logical fallacy of obsolescence[0].  The
reasons for the 80 character limit still apply (that is, this is not
being kept solely or even primarily because of tradition), and in any
case the style guide is arbitrary but fixed for extremely sound
reasons.  Finally, as others have pointed out, it's likely that code
which cannot readily be made to conform to this limit is more likely
to be defective in more substantial ways as well.

There are enough real annoyances in ON to occupy all of us for years.
If the style guide even makes your top 100, you're not looking hard
enough.

[0] http://www.ccsn.nevada.edu/english/lab/FALLACY.htm

-- 
Keith M Wesolowski              "Sir, we're surrounded!" 
Solaris Kernel Team             "Excellent; we can attack in any direction!" 
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