[BzrTools/MERGE] cdiff --check-style Highlight trailing white space

[Stefan Monnier]

> This is a little off topic, but, what's the deal with 80 character
> line limits? My *cell phone* can displsy more text than that.

The problem is not to display more than 80 columns, but to read them.
I.e. you need to upgrade people's brains.  The problem is due to the
effort it takes for your eyes to jump  from the end of one line to the
beginning of the next.  You can make it easier either by keeping lines
short (as is done with the multi-columns layout used in all newspapers),
or by increasing interline spacing (as is used traditionally for PhD
theses, where it looks horrendous and takes up 100 pages to print the
same text that used just 12 pages when published in "conference
style").

Note that the rule of thumb is actually closer to "60 columns of text",
so you could argue that 80col is too restrictive if you allow yourself
to use 40col of indentation, but then I'd argue that 40col of
indentation is a good sign you need to split something out into its
own function.


        Stefan