On 2005-10-13 14:51:57 -0400, Derek Martin wrote: >> Readability is actually something that you can measure >> empirically. Take the challenge from my earlier document, do >> the experiment, and time reading the same amount of text in >> different formattings. > So, you're saying that the line length which is most readable is > identical for every single human being on the planet Earth? I > don't think that's even possible. I also think it's not even > really all that relevant. That style of argument is usually called a "strawman." I'm not talking about the *optimal* line width for *every* single human being: I'm saying that short lines are much more readable than long lines (because of horizontal eye movement), and that 60-80 characters is generally a good line length to use. (Guess why every single participant in this thread uses that kind of line length.) I object (and strongly) against claims that mutt's format=flowed handler is "broken", or that not re-flowing lines on wide screens is a "bug" when the actual code is (a) perfectly usable, and (b) the objection is really that we don't give enough rope to people to hang themselves. > It doesn't matter what the reasons are; the fact is that some > users want this functionality, and it's easy enough to provide > without harming anyone. So what's the hangup? Give me a clean patch that implements this feature, and lets me keep mutt's current behavior in the default configuration, and I might include it, given the fact that there's apparently quite a bit of demand for that. But please don't expect me to implement that, and also don't expect me to acknowledge this as a "bug." PS: A good way to configure such a patch would probably be an option that controls whether mutt will only flow overly long lines (much like fmt -s) -- exploiting the fact that format=flowed messages normally use less than 72 (or so) columns when rendered as "classical" plain text. -- Thomas Roessler · Personal soap box at <http://log.does-not-exist.org/>.
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