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> It's a forcing function that deters lazy writing. I'm not a proselytizer for it, but this is one reason I appreciate codebases that enforce arbitrary per-lin
by gen220 6y ago
> It's a forcing function that deters lazy writing.
I'm not a proselytizer for it, but this is one reason I appreciate codebases that enforce arbitrary per-line character limits. It pressures me to game the utility:noise ratio.
Left to our own devices, we occasionally bang out 40-char variable names, of which 20 chars add no value to the reader. The color column on the screen is a nice coach, saying "c'mon, you can do better".
- sjy 6y agoIn Le ton beau de Marot, Douglas Hofstadter talks about how writing the book using 90s-era desktop publishing software allowed him to spot widows, orphans and other typographic ugliness as he was composing the text, and he would fix these by rewriting the text rather than adjusting the typography, which resulted in many improvements. I prefer writing in WYSIWYG editors for this reason – it’s good to have an external trigger that prompts you to try rephrasing, even if it’s effectively random.