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How wide is your code?

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  • A Anna Jayne Metcalfe

    Ugh.

    Anna :rose: Having a bad bug day? Tech Blog | Anna's Place | Tears and Laughter "If mushy peas are the food of the devil, the stotty cake is the frisbee of God"

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    Donsw
    wrote on last edited by
    #45

    isn't it all about readability? when was the last time you printed code?

    cheers, Donsw My Recent Article : Backup of Data files - Full and Incremental

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    • C charlieg

      You young'uns ar spoiled by modern technology. I'm one of those old geezers still writing code, dangerously close to the 3 decade mark. I think John Simmons is older than me. He's angrier, i'm more dangerous ;) So, I'm contemplating a couple of s/w issues and one of those is - when to hit the return key? As I type this, I have to my left a 1920x1200 monitor connected to my 1920x1200 laptop. It seems to me a little silly to worry about any developer who might not have the same h/w rsources. To arbitrarily linebreak at 80, 132, or whatever seems a bit silly. Printing? Muahahahaaha.. come on. Thoughts?

      Charlie Gilley Will program for food... Hurtling toward a government of the stupid, by the stupid, for the stupid we go. —Michelle Malkin This crap sandwich is all yours.... 2009 "Stimulus Bill"

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      W Offline
      W Balboos GHB
      wrote on last edited by
      #46

      c nuf said!

      "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein
      "How do you find out if you're unwanted if everyone you try to ask tells you to stop bothering them and just go away?" - Balboos HaGadol

      "It's a sad state of affairs, indeed, when you start reading my tag lines for some sort of enlightenment. Sadder still, if that's where you need to find it." - Balboos HaGadol

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      • H Henry Minute

        Another useful registry hack is: Under the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\9.0 key, you can create a DWORD UseMRUDocOrdering = 1. What this does is, when you select a tab in the editor, that tab moves to be the leftmost tab. This obviously keeps the most recently used files/designers visible in the editor. Only the least used fall off the end. Works in VS2008, VS2005 and their express versions. I like it, anyway.

        Henry Minute Do not read medical books! You could die of a misprint. - Mark Twain Girl: (staring) "Why do you need an icy cucumber?" “I want to report a fraud. The government is lying to us all.”

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        Dan Neely
        wrote on last edited by
        #47

        Now if we could just get a multirow tab strip, or have the tabs shrink to fit like in a browser...

        It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains. -- Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

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        • D Dan Neely

          Now if we could just get a multirow tab strip, or have the tabs shrink to fit like in a browser...

          It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains. -- Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

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          H Offline
          Henry Minute
          wrote on last edited by
          #48

          Maybe in VS2010, now they are using the delights of WPF for the Editor?

          Henry Minute Do not read medical books! You could die of a misprint. - Mark Twain Girl: (staring) "Why do you need an icy cucumber?" “I want to report a fraud. The government is lying to us all.”

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          • C charlieg

            You young'uns ar spoiled by modern technology. I'm one of those old geezers still writing code, dangerously close to the 3 decade mark. I think John Simmons is older than me. He's angrier, i'm more dangerous ;) So, I'm contemplating a couple of s/w issues and one of those is - when to hit the return key? As I type this, I have to my left a 1920x1200 monitor connected to my 1920x1200 laptop. It seems to me a little silly to worry about any developer who might not have the same h/w rsources. To arbitrarily linebreak at 80, 132, or whatever seems a bit silly. Printing? Muahahahaaha.. come on. Thoughts?

            Charlie Gilley Will program for food... Hurtling toward a government of the stupid, by the stupid, for the stupid we go. —Michelle Malkin This crap sandwich is all yours.... 2009 "Stimulus Bill"

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            Kevin Li Li Ken un
            wrote on last edited by
            #49

            I still break at 80 characters even though I have a 1920 × 1200 resolution display. I have a lot of panes opened under Visual Studio, but I don't like auto-hiding panes very much. I just leave everything in front of me at the same time. Maybe it’s a sign for me to get an ultra HD display[^]: the ones with 7680 × 4320 resolution. Then I can break after every thousand characters. :)


            My GUID: ca2262a7-0026-4830-a0b3-fe5d66c4eb1d :) Now I can Google this value and find all my Code Project posts!

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            • D Donsw

              isn't it all about readability? when was the last time you printed code?

              cheers, Donsw My Recent Article : Backup of Data files - Full and Incremental

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              Anna Jayne Metcalfe
              wrote on last edited by
              #50

              Yes, it is.

              Anna :rose: Having a bad bug day? Tech Blog | Anna's Place | Tears and Laughter "If mushy peas are the food of the devil, the stotty cake is the frisbee of God"

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              • C charlieg

                You young'uns ar spoiled by modern technology. I'm one of those old geezers still writing code, dangerously close to the 3 decade mark. I think John Simmons is older than me. He's angrier, i'm more dangerous ;) So, I'm contemplating a couple of s/w issues and one of those is - when to hit the return key? As I type this, I have to my left a 1920x1200 monitor connected to my 1920x1200 laptop. It seems to me a little silly to worry about any developer who might not have the same h/w rsources. To arbitrarily linebreak at 80, 132, or whatever seems a bit silly. Printing? Muahahahaaha.. come on. Thoughts?

                Charlie Gilley Will program for food... Hurtling toward a government of the stupid, by the stupid, for the stupid we go. —Michelle Malkin This crap sandwich is all yours.... 2009 "Stimulus Bill"

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                Larry G Grimes
                wrote on last edited by
                #51

                Anyone like me remember when we were restricted to a 132 character line length limit because that was the standard for line printers? The longer a line is, the more difficult it is to read. To keep program code effective, efficient, readable and elegant, lines should be kept short. If indenting keeps moving to the right, it helps elegance and readability to create a subroutine (if it doesn't affect performance).

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                • J JDL EPM

                  Walt Fair, Jr. wrote:

                  Youngster! I wrote my first program in 1967 (remember punch cards? ), so I'm working on my 5th decade. I usually try to keep my code on a normal screen or page, so I keep it around 80 characters wide, but sometimes I violate that guideline.

                  First Program: 1965 First Computer: IBM 1620 First Language: Gotran (a simplified Fortran - only one operation per punch card) First printer: IBM golf ball typewriter Page Width: Whatever the flavour of the month is for my employer. 43 pay cheques to go!

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                  Dr Walt Fair PE
                  wrote on last edited by
                  #52

                  My first program was for an IBM 1620 with the golf ball typewriter as well. The first program I *wrote* was also in Gotran, but unfortunately our machine didn't have enough power to run the compiler, so I never got to run it. The first program I actually *ran* was in IBM 1620 assembly language. For those who don't know, the IBM 1620 had a rotating drum memory, used BCD rather than pure binary, and only did integer addition and subtraction for math operations. Part of our class project was to program multiplication and division and figure out how to implement some sort of floating point. Of course the compilers took care of that, but we were messing with assembly.

                  CQ de W5ALT

                  Walt Fair, Jr., P. E. Comport Computing Specializing in Technical Engineering Software

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                  • D Donsw

                    isn't it all about readability? when was the last time you printed code?

                    cheers, Donsw My Recent Article : Backup of Data files - Full and Incremental

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                    PIEBALDconsult
                    wrote on last edited by
                    #53

                    Donsw wrote:

                    when was the last time you printed code?

                    Friday.

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                    • J jsc42

                      Robert Surtees wrote:

                      For those that did not have the pleasure of using punch cards, you have to also understad that the keypunch machines rarely had a working ribbon in them so to insert new cards (or, heavan forbid you dropped the deck) you had to identify them by reading the semi-braille dents across the top or otherwise make sense of the pattern of punched out holes.

                      Luxury! We had the 'manual' card punches - normally requiring using two or three fingers per character (up to 6 if using EBCDIC) directly pushing the punches that made the holes; later models included a mechanism that forwarded the card to the next column after you released the punches; there were no printing capabilities. You only found out if you'd used the correct finger combinations when the deck came back with the lineprinter listing (approx a fortnight later). Even that was better than using coding sheets - sent to the punch room to be mispunched, so you'd send the same data again to be mispunched again. I'm still a youngster to computing - only about 37 years of coding experience (started late in life). I started with paper tape - I cut my own strips of paper, sellotaped the lengths then punched the holes with a knitting needle, being careful to ensure that the holes lined up. After that, cards punched using a mechanical machine were a breeze.

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                      B Offline
                      BadKarma
                      wrote on last edited by
                      #54

                      jsc42 wrote:

                      Luxury! We had the 'manual' card punches - normally requiring using two or three fingers per character (up to 6 if using EBCDIC) directly pushing the punches that made the holes; later models included a mechanism that forwarded the card to the next column after you released the punches; there were no printing capabilities. You only found out if you'd used the correct finger combinations when the deck came back with the lineprinter listing (approx a fortnight later). Even that was better than using coding sheets - sent to the punch room to be mispunched, so you'd send the same data again to be mispunched again.

                      Luxury. We had to get up at 4 a clock in the morning, walk ten miles to the stone quarry, work for 12 straight hours sawing of a nice stone tablet. Then we had to walk back 14 miles with the 100 pound tablet on our backs, to the office where we carved holes in the tables using a spoon. God forbid if we carved a hole out at the wrong place, we could go back to the quarry for a new tablet. When we done programming the tablet we could test it on our debugsystem which was located on the 31 floor (no lift in the building). I usually got back from the office at 3 a clock the next day. So could sleep at least 1 houre. ;)

                      Learn from the mistakes of others, you may not live long enough to make them all yourself.

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                      • C charlieg

                        You young'uns ar spoiled by modern technology. I'm one of those old geezers still writing code, dangerously close to the 3 decade mark. I think John Simmons is older than me. He's angrier, i'm more dangerous ;) So, I'm contemplating a couple of s/w issues and one of those is - when to hit the return key? As I type this, I have to my left a 1920x1200 monitor connected to my 1920x1200 laptop. It seems to me a little silly to worry about any developer who might not have the same h/w rsources. To arbitrarily linebreak at 80, 132, or whatever seems a bit silly. Printing? Muahahahaaha.. come on. Thoughts?

                        Charlie Gilley Will program for food... Hurtling toward a government of the stupid, by the stupid, for the stupid we go. —Michelle Malkin This crap sandwich is all yours.... 2009 "Stimulus Bill"

                        K Offline
                        K Offline
                        kmoorevs
                        wrote on last edited by
                        #55

                        There is a limit of 1024 characters in the VS editor. For long sql statements I have to break as I prefer to separate the same as my query builder. I am the sole developer here, so no one else ever sees it anyway and I have no problem debugging in this format. Print code? Why on earth would code need to be printed? What a waste!

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                        • K kmoorevs

                          There is a limit of 1024 characters in the VS editor. For long sql statements I have to break as I prefer to separate the same as my query builder. I am the sole developer here, so no one else ever sees it anyway and I have no problem debugging in this format. Print code? Why on earth would code need to be printed? What a waste!

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                          Dan Neely
                          wrote on last edited by
                          #56

                          kmoorevs wrote:

                          Print code? Why on earth would code need to be printed? What a waste! Quote Selected Text

                          It's much easier to draw arrows and start unfubaring spaghetti code you were inflicted with in a 5' paper listing than in a 1' tall screen. Otherwise I can't think of any reason I've done so on the job.

                          It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains. -- Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

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                          • T Todd Smith

                            Word wrap. Returns are for wimps.

                            Todd Smith

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                            PIEBALDconsult
                            wrote on last edited by
                            #57

                            Indeed, a programming language should not require newlines.

                            1 Reply Last reply
                            0
                            • K kmoorevs

                              There is a limit of 1024 characters in the VS editor. For long sql statements I have to break as I prefer to separate the same as my query builder. I am the sole developer here, so no one else ever sees it anyway and I have no problem debugging in this format. Print code? Why on earth would code need to be printed? What a waste!

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                              P Offline
                              PIEBALDconsult
                              wrote on last edited by
                              #58

                              I print out code that's giving me trouble; it allows me to step away from the computer and get a fresh look at it. I can also mark it up with pencil without changing the code. It also helps with code that I'm preparing to publish.

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                              • D Dr Walt Fair PE

                                charlieg wrote:

                                I'm one of those old geezers still writing code, dangerously close to the 3 decade mark.

                                Youngster! I wrote my first program in 1967 (remember punch cards? ), so I'm working on my 5th decade. I usually try to keep my code on a normal screen or page, so I keep it around 80 characters wide, but sometimes I violate that guideline.

                                CQ de W5ALT

                                Walt Fair, Jr., P. E. Comport Computing Specializing in Technical Engineering Software

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                                Joe Woodbury
                                wrote on last edited by
                                #59

                                The first program I wrote myself was on an Apple II in 1980. Ironically, I took a step back to punch card machines at college in a Fortran class. It was so boring, I never did major in CS. Two years later, I was taking another computer class (I was majoring in Design Engineering at the time) and the punch card machines had been updated to have a digital display--you would enter the data using the display and then hit print. Especially given that I was a lab tutor in a Vax lab, it was one of the silliest things I'd ever seen.

                                Anyone who thinks he has a better idea of what's good for people than people do is a swine. - P.J. O'Rourke

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                                • L Luc Pattyn

                                  Hi, I use different computers, different monitor widths, and I hate scrolling horizontally all the time, so I prefer not to exceed some 90 characters on a line; I use 4-space tabs and told Visual to show guide lines by adding a registry key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\VCSExpress\9.0\Text Editor (adjust as required) Add a string called “Guides”, set its value to RGB(255,0,0) 80,96 BTW: my printing code will take care of lines that exceed the page width. FWIW: I don't want wide code snippets when composing a message here! :)

                                  Luc Pattyn [Forum Guidelines] [My Articles]


                                  The quality and detail of your question reflects on the effectiveness of the help you are likely to get. Show formatted code inside PRE tags, and give clear symptoms when describing a problem.


                                  modified on Sunday, May 17, 2009 6:32 PM

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                                  GeorgeMayfield
                                  wrote on last edited by
                                  #60

                                  The guides are cool. Thanks George

                                  L 1 Reply Last reply
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                                  • G GeorgeMayfield

                                    The guides are cool. Thanks George

                                    L Offline
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                                    Luc Pattyn
                                    wrote on last edited by
                                    #61

                                    No problem. :)

                                    Luc Pattyn [Forum Guidelines] [My Articles]


                                    The quality and detail of your question reflects on the effectiveness of the help you are likely to get. Show formatted code inside PRE tags, and give clear symptoms when describing a problem.


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                                    • C charlieg

                                      You young'uns ar spoiled by modern technology. I'm one of those old geezers still writing code, dangerously close to the 3 decade mark. I think John Simmons is older than me. He's angrier, i'm more dangerous ;) So, I'm contemplating a couple of s/w issues and one of those is - when to hit the return key? As I type this, I have to my left a 1920x1200 monitor connected to my 1920x1200 laptop. It seems to me a little silly to worry about any developer who might not have the same h/w rsources. To arbitrarily linebreak at 80, 132, or whatever seems a bit silly. Printing? Muahahahaaha.. come on. Thoughts?

                                      Charlie Gilley Will program for food... Hurtling toward a government of the stupid, by the stupid, for the stupid we go. —Michelle Malkin This crap sandwich is all yours.... 2009 "Stimulus Bill"

                                      C Offline
                                      C Offline
                                      CDMTJX
                                      wrote on last edited by
                                      #62

                                      Young 'uns?? :confused: Mature programers like printouts, multiple sheets spread out, and mark them up to understand changes needed to be made. Not to mention folks with bifocals (even fancy transition without the lines) don't like tiny print on their screens. I don't like "wide" code, beyond 100 or so characters becomes hard to read.

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                                      • B blackjack2150

                                        Me too. Though, they are in xsd.exe auto-generated code files, based on xml schema files. A pain when I need to use those in my client code...

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                                        Gary R Wheeler
                                        wrote on last edited by
                                        #63

                                        The worst offenders for me are some resource ID's in my native code for STRINGTABLE resources:

                                        #define IDS_Msg_Tnc_PageCorrelationSensor1PatternDifferenceExceeded 1243

                                        Software Zen: delete this;
                                        Fold With Us![^]

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                                        • H Henry Minute

                                          Another useful registry hack is: Under the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\9.0 key, you can create a DWORD UseMRUDocOrdering = 1. What this does is, when you select a tab in the editor, that tab moves to be the leftmost tab. This obviously keeps the most recently used files/designers visible in the editor. Only the least used fall off the end. Works in VS2008, VS2005 and their express versions. I like it, anyway.

                                          Henry Minute Do not read medical books! You could die of a misprint. - Mark Twain Girl: (staring) "Why do you need an icy cucumber?" “I want to report a fraud. The government is lying to us all.”

                                          L Offline
                                          L Offline
                                          Luc Pattyn
                                          wrote on last edited by
                                          #64

                                          Hi Henry, thanks for the info. I'll give it a go, not sure I will ever get used to tabs hopping around though. :)

                                          Luc Pattyn [Forum Guidelines] [My Articles]


                                          The quality and detail of your question reflects on the effectiveness of the help you are likely to get. Show formatted code inside PRE tags, and give clear symptoms when describing a problem.


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