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Can you detail a bit more what you mean by extraneous material? Is it something like "you now also need tools that can do soft-wrapping"? Even if that's the cas

Can you detail a bit more what you mean by extraneous material? Is it something like "you now also need tools that can do soft-wrapping"? Even if that's the case, I think it is easier to wrap a text than to unwrap it (programmatically). So, if you need hard-wrapping, you can just do it. Wrapping is just as simple as; `fold -s -w 80 input.txt` Unwrapping usually turns out to be harder according to my experiences. [1] > You also can't grep for things "at the beginning of the line", which is often an important indicator. When I did a lot of plain C programming, I would put function names at the start of a line, below their return type to make it easy to grep for a function definition, rather than just uses. I see what you mean. But I don’t think your approach conflicts with my recommendation for soft-wrapping. You can still soft-wrap regular text files while choosing to separate certain lines of code for clarity. What you’re doing might not even be considered "hard-wrapping" in the typical sense—it's not like you're breaking a 240-character line into multiple lines. You're simply formatting the definition in a way that suits your style, and it's perfectly ok! For the last one, you can simply use `git diff --word-diff`. Also, platforms like GitHub already highlight word-based diffs, so it usually is very easy to spot the changes. [1]. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39227848 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39227848

bediger4000 2y ago
Extraneous material in my example would be potentially the rest of a large paragraph if I change one word. The example would be the diffs of a "Word" doc: the whole paragraph shows as a diff. Folding after the "git diff" would just mean visually picking the diff out of a lot of text. I do a lot of Go programming these days, and there's a conventional format for code that ends up with a lot of hard wrapped lines, so my C example is just that, an example. Maybe Markdown would be a better example. When I edit markdown, I move around phrases, clauses and sentences. It's certainly possible to do this with a gigantic soft wrapped chunk of text, but it's much easier with one clause or even phrase per hard wrapped (at 74 characters or less) line. Grepability and diffability and even running text through sed or awk are easier. You're not relying on text coloring. Editing with vim is easier, it has commands to move the cursor to next word, previous paragraph etc etc. This is one of those things like tabs or spaces and byte order marks. We're unlikely to convince each other.
- MrJohz 2y ago
  That doesn't sound like soft or hard wrapping, though, that sounds like semantic wrapping, which is a separate concept entirely. With semantic wrapping you put each sentence (or similar) on a new line, which helps with diffing. But if that sentence runs over e.g. 80 characters, you still need to decide whether you're going to hard wrap or soft wrap that sentence. And in the inverse direction, if you don't do semantic wrapping, you'll have similar issues with diffs regardless of whether you use hard wraps or soft wraps. So I think that's a good argument for doing semantic wrapping of code and text (I guess semantic wrapping for code is just not writing everything in one long line separated by semicolons), but once you've put in semantic line breaks, you still need to decide how to handle text that spans multiple lines.
  - a1369209993 2y ago
    > But if that sentence runs over e.g. 80 characters, > you still need to decide > whether you're going to hard wrap or soft wrap that sentence. No I don't. Semantic wrapping all the way.
    - MrJohz 2y ago
      > This is a sentence that includes the word "Lopadotemachoselachogaleokranioleipsanodrimhypotrimmatosilphiokarabomelitokatakechymenokichlepikossyphophattoperisteralektryonoptekephalliokigklopeleiolagoiosiraiobaphetraganopterygon" in it. > How should it be wrapped semantically? This is a psychological case to demonstrate how semantic wrapping does not by itself solve the "hard vs soft" wrapping question. If the answer is that the word should remain as a single word, then you are using soft wraps (or no wraps at all). If the answer is that the word should be split into 80 character chunks, then you're using hard wraps.
      - a1369209993 2y ago
        > How should it be wrapped semantically? I have no idea what the semantics of that word are, which is information that is required in order to properly semantically wrap it. (Inherently, since conveying such semantics is one of the major pointer of semantic wrapping.) However, you included embedded control characters (C2 AD aka 'SOFT HYPHEN'; below replaced with '-') that encode less semantic information than is necessary for proper semantic wrapping, but not none: Lopado-temacho-selacho-galeo-kranio-leipsano-drim-hypo-trimmato-silphio-karabo-melito-katakechy-meno-kichl-epi-kossypho-phatto-perister-alektryon-opte-kephallio-kigklo-peleio-lagoio-siraio-baphe-tragano-pterygon. Web browsers use that information to do poor-quality semantic wrapping automatically - actual hard or soft[0] wrapping would produce something like: Lopadotemachoselachogaleokranioleipsanod- rimhypotrimmatosilphiokarabomelitokatake- chymenokichlepikossyphophattoperisterale- ktryonoptekephalliokigklopeleiolagoiosir- aiobaphetraganopterygon. Which looks like the following from a partly-semanically-aware perspective: Lopado-temacho-selacho-galeo-kranio-leipsano-d[BREAK]rim-hypo-trimmato-silphio-karabo-melito-katake[BREAK]chy-meno-kichl-epi-kossypho-phatto-perister-ale[BREAK]ktryon-opte-kephallio-kigklo-peleio-lagoio-sir[BREAK]aio-baphe-tragano-pterygon. The fact that you included soft hyphens rather concedes the point that hard and soft[0] wrapping is incorrect[1]. 0: Or rather, non-semantic, which is what we're actually arguing over. Technically, semantic wrapping is a subset of hard wrapping, but it's a specific subset that isn't what is expressed by just saying "hard wrapping". Kind of like how birds aren't what anyone means when they just say "dinosaurs". 1: Granted, to be fair, a lot of the time we just don't care. But (contra your original comment) we never need to resort to non-semantic wrapping; we just sometimes (often) decide to be lazy because it doesn't matter.

bediger4000 2y ago

Extraneous material in my example would be potentially the rest of a large paragraph if I change one word. The example would be the diffs of a "Word" doc: the whole paragraph shows as a diff. Folding after the "git diff" would just mean visually picking the diff out of a lot of text. I do a lot of Go programming these days, and there's a conventional format for code that ends up with a lot of hard wrapped lines, so my C example is just that, an example. Maybe Markdown would be a better example. When I edit markdown, I move around phrases, clauses and sentences. It's certainly possible to do this with a gigantic soft wrapped chunk of text, but it's much easier with one clause or even phrase per hard wrapped (at 74 characters or less) line. Grepability and diffability and even running text through sed or awk are easier. You're not relying on text coloring. Editing with vim is easier, it has commands to move the cursor to next word, previous paragraph etc etc. This is one of those things like tabs or spaces and byte order marks. We're unlikely to convince each other.

MrJohz 2y ago
That doesn't sound like soft or hard wrapping, though, that sounds like semantic wrapping, which is a separate concept entirely. With semantic wrapping you put each sentence (or similar) on a new line, which helps with diffing. But if that sentence runs over e.g. 80 characters, you still need to decide whether you're going to hard wrap or soft wrap that sentence. And in the inverse direction, if you don't do semantic wrapping, you'll have similar issues with diffs regardless of whether you use hard wraps or soft wraps. So I think that's a good argument for doing semantic wrapping of code and text (I guess semantic wrapping for code is just not writing everything in one long line separated by semicolons), but once you've put in semantic line breaks, you still need to decide how to handle text that spans multiple lines.
- a1369209993 2y ago
  > But if that sentence runs over e.g. 80 characters, > you still need to decide > whether you're going to hard wrap or soft wrap that sentence. No I don't. Semantic wrapping all the way.
  - MrJohz 2y ago
    > This is a sentence that includes the word "Lopadotemachoselachogaleokranioleipsanodrimhypotrimmatosilphiokarabomelitokatakechymenokichlepikossyphophattoperisteralektryonoptekephalliokigklopeleiolagoiosiraiobaphetraganopterygon" in it. > How should it be wrapped semantically? This is a psychological case to demonstrate how semantic wrapping does not by itself solve the "hard vs soft" wrapping question. If the answer is that the word should remain as a single word, then you are using soft wraps (or no wraps at all). If the answer is that the word should be split into 80 character chunks, then you're using hard wraps.
    - a1369209993 2y ago
      > How should it be wrapped semantically? I have no idea what the semantics of that word are, which is information that is required in order to properly semantically wrap it. (Inherently, since conveying such semantics is one of the major pointer of semantic wrapping.) However, you included embedded control characters (C2 AD aka 'SOFT HYPHEN'; below replaced with '-') that encode less semantic information than is necessary for proper semantic wrapping, but not none: Lopado-temacho-selacho-galeo-kranio-leipsano-drim-hypo-trimmato-silphio-karabo-melito-katakechy-meno-kichl-epi-kossypho-phatto-perister-alektryon-opte-kephallio-kigklo-peleio-lagoio-siraio-baphe-tragano-pterygon. Web browsers use that information to do poor-quality semantic wrapping automatically - actual hard or soft[0] wrapping would produce something like: Lopadotemachoselachogaleokranioleipsanod- rimhypotrimmatosilphiokarabomelitokatake- chymenokichlepikossyphophattoperisterale- ktryonoptekephalliokigklopeleiolagoiosir- aiobaphetraganopterygon. Which looks like the following from a partly-semanically-aware perspective: Lopado-temacho-selacho-galeo-kranio-leipsano-d[BREAK]rim-hypo-trimmato-silphio-karabo-melito-katake[BREAK]chy-meno-kichl-epi-kossypho-phatto-perister-ale[BREAK]ktryon-opte-kephallio-kigklo-peleio-lagoio-sir[BREAK]aio-baphe-tragano-pterygon. The fact that you included soft hyphens rather concedes the point that hard and soft[0] wrapping is incorrect[1]. 0: Or rather, non-semantic, which is what we're actually arguing over. Technically, semantic wrapping is a subset of hard wrapping, but it's a specific subset that isn't what is expressed by just saying "hard wrapping". Kind of like how birds aren't what anyone means when they just say "dinosaurs". 1: Granted, to be fair, a lot of the time we just don't care. But (contra your original comment) we never need to resort to non-semantic wrapping; we just sometimes (often) decide to be lazy because it doesn't matter.