[erlang-questions] Announcing Erlang.org Code of Conduct

Richard A. O'Keefe ok@REDACTED
Thu Mar 19 02:23:30 CET 2015


I said I agreed with trying to keep lines short.

On 19/03/2015, at 9:40 am, Anthony Ramine <n.oxyde@REDACTED> wrote:
> I disagree. To me your messages look funny (lines *too* short) on my main computer, and just plain unreadable on any mobile screen, because it must wrap it furthermore to make it fit the screen.

Well, I found your message uncomfortable to read
because of its long lines.

The point of my message was to *increase* authorial
freedom compared with the proposed CoC rule.
Instead of saying "74 character limit OR ELSE",
I was suggesting "use some judgement".

> I don't expect the Web to be hand-wrapped, nor books, nor papers done with LaTeX.

The wrapping of books cannot be changed.
The wrapping of papers done with LaTeX is
*mostly* done by LaTeX, but it is very
common for people to have to rewrite text
to get good line breaks, even with (La)TeX.
One thing any experienced TeXnician is aware
of is that text written for one paper size
will *not* look good when reformatted for a
different size, *when formatted by (La)TeX*.
Especially tables.

Oddly enough, e-mail is NOT the Web, NOT a book,
and NOT a paper done with LaTeX (or Weird, or Lout,
or Troff).

Anyone who finds my lines too short must have
terrible trouble with cereal boxes and newspapers.
(And I do know that e-mail isn't either of those.
Although it *is* very very much like the letters
to the Editor, which conventionally uses much
shorter lines than I do.)

> Could we finally evolve from plain plain/text to format=flowed plain/text?
> 
> 	http://joeclark.org/ffaq.html

That's pretty much what the Mail program does _anyway_.
Basically, all format=flowed does is to take away
the author's freedom to use short lines; apart from
that it doesn't seem to change anything.

The point about mobiles is well taken.  I know I had
great trouble trying to read e-mail on an iPad using
a web mail interface.  Mind you, that was because of
long lines, not short ones.  But you know, there is
nothing that stops a mobile phone mail reader from
re-breaking paragraphs.





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