From: Frans Klaver Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2011 06:16:21 GMT Subject: Re: Question about commit message wrapping Message-ID: In-Reply-To: <4EE6C31C.60909@alum.mit.edu> On Tue, 13 Dec 2011 04:14:36 +0100, Michael Haggerty wrote: > On 12/12/2011 11:16 PM, Frans Klaver wrote: >> Wrapped code as in auto-wrapped? Or as in manually wrapped? Python >> programmers have significant white space, but you can still hard wrap >> stuff, as long as the next statement is properly indented. > > This is incorrect. Python statements can only be broken across lines > within unbalanced parenthesis (or using '\' or within a multiline > string). For example, > > x = > 1 > > is a syntax error, while > > y = ( > 1 > ) > > or > > f(1, > 2, > 3, > 4) > > are both valid. Hm yes, my statement was quite incomplete. What you describe here is what I meant, and I should have taken the time to word it down properly. Thanks for taking the time to do so. > > FWIW I think automatic wrapping of commit messages is a bad idea. I > wrap my commit messages deliberately to make them look the way I want > them to look. The assumption of an 80-character display has historical > reasons, but it is also a relatively comfortable line-width to read > (even on wider displays). And given that commit messages sometimes > contain "flowable" paragraph text, sometimes code snippets, sometimes > ASCII art, etc, no automatic wrapping will work correctly unless > everybody agrees that commit messages must be written in some specific > form of markup (or lightweight markup). And I can't imagine such a > thing ever happening. > > As for "future-proofing", do you really think there will be a lot of > programming happening on mobile phones with less than 80-character-wide > displays? (And even my little HTC can easily fit 80 characters if I > rotate the phone to "landscape" mode.) Makes sense.