Re: Which code style do you prefer the most?

On 28/02/2025 10:00, Janis Papanagnou wrote:

On 27.02.2025 16:47, David Brown wrote:

On 27/02/2025 06:57, Janis Papanagnou wrote:

On 26.02.2025 20:56, David Brown wrote:

On 26/02/2025 18:13, Janis Papanagnou wrote:

(I'm snipping part of this - I don't think it is really going anywhere, and certainly not anywhere topical for the group!)

Doing too much in
one line of code makes it hard to understand - regardless of how many
characters it actually uses.

 I think we should abandon speaking about it in terms of characters.
 

Agreed.

(I think we agreed that readability is the key, not a hard or soft
column limit; typically used number of columns are nonetheless based
on cultural - you may say also technical; still based on cultural -
sensible heuristics. But habits seem to run out of control "lately".)
 

Yes.

Taking something that is logically one
operation or expression and artificially splitting it into two (or more)
lines to suit an arbitrary line length limit also makes the code hard to
understand. [...]

 This may be the case or not. - That's the whole point; to organize the
code to become clear. - A split may make it even better readable. (But
a _misplaced_ split may make it worse.)

Sure.  It is the "artificial" splitting merely to fit some line length rule that is the problem, not splitting in itself.

 Is that split in your opinion reducing readability...?
          if (sscanf (mutations, "r:%u,g:%u,a:%u,d:%u",
                     &mutation_rates.base,
                     &mutation_rates.genesis,
                     &mutation_rates.aging,
                     &mutation_rates.death
                    ) != 4)
 or would you prefer it for (better?) readability to be in one line?
 

Splitting is fine here - it is natural and fits the flow of the code.
I might prefer to write it as :
const int matches = sscanf (mutations, "r:%u,g:%u,a:%u,d:%u",
&mutation_rates.base,
&mutation_rates.genesis,
&mutation_rates.aging,
&mutation_rates.death
);
if (matches != 4) {
since the "!= 4" bit looks a bit lonely and out of place in your code. But that is perhaps just splitting hairs :-)

>

Myself I usually operate on a minimum of two physical screens, and
(with my font setting) each one capable of displaying two 80-column
windows side by side.

>
That seems small to me.

 Do you mean my screen or my default window size setting?
 I cannot help; I'm used to the two 24" screens that I have, and my age
and health does not allow to regularly use font's below 10pt (or so).
 

I also have two 24" screens (on this computer), and my eyes are also not as good as they used to be.  (In my youth, I used to write my notes on 2mm graph paper - normal lined paper seemed a waste of space to me.)

I have no problem with two approximately
120-column windows side-by-side in my IDE,

 This actually explains your preferences; elsethread I wrote about my
observations of people using larger defaults for window sizes, and
specifically that I've observed IDE users to work with larger default
window sizes also regularly don't mind writing code with (even much)
longer lines.

I don't go overboard on line length, but I do like to have more room than 80 characters, and I don't like hard limits.  One factor in this is that a fair bit of my development is in C++ (on small embedded systems), and namespaces and classes mean that the average full identifier length is a fair amount longer than in C - thus it is natural for lines to be longer.
I use IDE's often, but I also use lighter editors and occasionally command-line editors as well.  It depends on the kind of project I am working on, and what I am doing with it - IDE's are heavier, but good if there's a lot of cross-file navigation and integration with a debugger and other tools.  Other editors can often be more efficient for smaller tasks or non-coding work.

 (Given what you write here my guess is that our habits actually don't
differ too much. And I think also our reasoning is not too different
in principle, if I've read your post correctly. - Our differences are
probably only in our observation, experiences, opinions, hypotheses,
concerning the historic or cultural background.)
 

That sounds about right.  And I've no problem at all with those kinds of differences - my only problem is with people (not you) who think there are "magic" numbers and fixed rules that should always apply.