Re: Man-width on terminals

[Robert J. Chassell]

    ... allow terminals using all available horizontal space ...

That does not make much sense since the fix does not seem to increase
inter-line whitespace along with line length.

The purpose of limiting line lengths is to prevent needing too much
inter-line whitespace.

Readers tend to lose track of where they are -- unless there is enough
inter-line white space for whatever length of line they use.  This
does not apply to all readers, of course, just to most.  Printers have
found that out over the past five hundred years.  That is why books
have lines that are no more than twice or so the length of an alphabet
(that measure is an old printer's rule of thumb).

With more inter-line whitespace, you can have longer lines.  The
maximum reasonable length for the contents of a line with lots of
inter-line whitespace turned out to be about 70 characters.  Computer
terminals have the whitespace needed, so they are seldom narrow.  And,
for the same reason, terminals seldom had more than 80 characters.
(That is also why cards on which FORTRAN was written had only 80
characters.)

Of course, if you wish to make your manual page width be less than 70
characters, that is fine.  I am against long lines that need more
inter-line whitespace than many writers provide.

-- 
    Robert J. Chassell                          GnuPG Key ID: 004B4AC8
    address@hidden                         address@hidden
    http://www.rattlesnake.com                  http://www.teak.cc