Re: ChangeLog conventions: fill-column

["Robert J. Chassell" <bob@rattlesnake.com>]

    ... such a `fill-column' was used only in mails or news to allow
    easy replies under 80 columns.

    >   I don't see the point here, any clue ?

        Nobody ? If there's no rational, why not put this limit to 79
        in add-log.el ?

There is at least one rationale besides the 500 year old one having to
do with the abilities or inabilities of your and my eyes -- even with
lots of interline spacing, a long line makes it hard to discover the
beginning of the next line.

Besides that rationale, the problem that effects me is most frequently
-- more frequently than I like -- is that some one quotes an item in a
message to my friend Joe and he quotes it in a message to me.  Quotes
are supposed to reflect what the original writer said and not be
corrupted by filling or anything like that (although they often are).

I hate to say it, but you really do not want a fill-column of more
than 72.  70 is the standard based on regular computer monitors.
Printed books usually display less inter-line spacing and shorter
lines.

(The convention is `twice the length of an alphabet plus major
punctuation'.  For English, that produces a line 60 or 61 characters
wide, depending on whether you consider a hyphen to be `major
punctuation'.  When you have more interline white space, as computer
displays do, then you can have more characters on a line.)

-- 
    Robert J. Chassell                         
    bob@rattlesnake.com                         GnuPG Key ID: 004B4AC8
    http://www.rattlesnake.com                  http://www.teak.cc