Fear Of Wide Monitors

[dandy72]

Last time I printed from VS, the default seemed to be 120 characters per line, so I tend to stick with that. Which also just so happens to fit quite nicely on a portrait-mode monitor (1920x1200) (1200x1920), plus one window docked vertically. I have two such monitors side-by-side, with VS stretched across both, plus a third one (1920x1080) set up in the standard landscape mode for everything else.

[snorkie]

My comment about books is related to word-wrap. Most developers I work with can't seem to code with word-wrap turned on. It seems as simple as reading a book. Since I read a fair amount, I have no issue coding with word wrap turned on, it just feels natural. Hogan

[PIEBALDconsult]

dandy72 wrote:

printed from VS

I don't do that; I use Word.

[snorkie]

I can't remember the last time I printed anything! It isn't a consideration for anything I work on. Hogan

[dandy72]

I wasn't implying I print a lot of code. Given the number of monitor sizes/resolutions, I decided I had to settle on *something*, so a printed sheet of paper seemed to make sense to me at a time. Having to scroll code horizontally, just because I happen to occasionally be on a smaller display, is a tremendous hassle (I know, first-world problem)...so even the crappiest display I might be stuck using will probably be wide enough to show at least one file without scrolling.

[snorkie]

Fair enough. To tackle this issue, I use word-wrap. I essentially have the same environment on any monitor without having to perform any special formatting. I find the extra wrapping of code harder to read, but it sounds like I'm in the minority. Hogan

[KarstenK]

Some monitors can be turned 90 degrees, so you can see a lot of lines, after changing the display mode :rolleyes:

Press F1 for help or google it. Greetings from Germany

[markus_code]

My "coding monitor" is rotated 90°. With short lines (my Vim configuration breaks them at 80 characters) I can still have 2 files in a vertical split and see their full horizontal contents. It works very well if you also use a terminal (I use tmux) that allows splits, since you can have a small window at the bottom for builds, or htop, or both :)

[Kiriander]

I love wide monitors, but I don't use the width for code. Instead, I use half the width for code and the other half for let's say documentation. Or the dubugee. Or something else.

[SortaCore]

They worked out you can read faster with one word displayed at a time. So why not apply that to code too? Go through hundreds of lines in a few minutes and hope your instincts are attentive enough.

[User 10437904]

The human eye gets tired easily when being forced to scan across wide spans of text. That's why newspaper and magazine articles are split into columns.

[MKJCP]

I believe the point was if you can comprehend many characters per line in other media, why not in code. Paperback was a bad example but much written text has 100+ characters per line. Put another way, inability to read long code lines does not seem like the cause of short code lines.

[snorkie]

Maybe I'm not human... :-\ Hogan

[snorkie]

Thanks for the link, that was cool! I was surprised I could easily do the 700 WPM. Though that might be a bit more difficult with code. Was that one { or three? Hogan

[Dan Neely]

Too lazy to find them now; but that's been thoroughly trashed (from the good idea standpoint) by experts in reading/comprehension in that what it mostly does is prevent you from doing all the extra processing needed to correctly understand non-trivial sentence structure or anything that requires thought.

Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, waging all things in the balance of reason? Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful? --Zachris Topelius Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies. -- Sarah Hoyt

[Ygnaiih]

I actually have and like a wide monitor. I do break up a line when something in that line is more readable in a second line. I do this often in SQL like: … From tblMain m Left join tblPoop p On m.thing = p. thing. That helps to tame the dyslexia for me.

[Dan Neely]

VS is too sidebar centric to play nice at even 1200px wide; and while I have rotated my 3" 2560x1600 screen to portrait before, it's too tall to be comfortably used that way.

Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, waging all things in the balance of reason? Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful? --Zachris Topelius Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies. -- Sarah Hoyt

[dandy72]

snorkie wrote:

To tackle this issue, I use word-wrap

<shudder>

snorkie wrote:

it sounds like I'm in the minority

Probably. :-)

[KLPounds]

Its an optimizing cash cow for those who get paid per line of code.:thumbsup:

[patbob]

The resolution of monitors has dropped in recent years -- there was a huge backward reset when HD TVs came out and all the manufacturers retooled for producing flat panel TVs.

We can program with only 1's, but if all you've got are zeros, you've got nothing.