Re: flyspell + longlines: hang/wait

[David Reitter]

On 27 Oct 2005, at 16:27, Ralf Angeli wrote:
> > - I've been doing some work in Python lately. Python enforces strict
> >   formatting, and you don't have the option of inserting a newline at
> >   almost arbitrary (whitespace) positions like in C, for example.
>
> Of course there is such an option.  Just put a backslash in front of
> the linebreak.  See
> <URL:http://www.python.org/doc/2.4.2/ref/explicit-joining.html>.

Sure, but that involves me assuming a fixed line length (that's where  
I insert the line break, including the backslash).
The next time I open the file in a frame with a different (smaller)  
width, things get messy again.

(I said "inserting a newline at whitespace positions like in C" for a  
reason. Python requires the backslash, many other languages don't  
because they treat newlines as whitespace.)

> > - LaTeX. Sometimes I edit my document with a narrow frame, sometimes
> >   with a larger one. Screen real-estate is limited, and I often like
> >   to  have several things open to copy/paste etc. Therefore, I'd like
> >   text  to be rewrapped to use up the screen.
>
> Personally I think the longer text lines become the more readability
> decreases.  So for me a 70-something character limit is desirable even
> in a wide frame.

Fair enough, that's your choice. And I wouldn't use very wide frames,  
for that reason. But I use narrow ones.

People who use window managers with several windows concurrently on  
the screen will probably more appreciate the problem at hand than  
someone who uses Emacs in TTY, or within a basic window manager with  
several desktop to switch between. I have a feeling that most people  
in the development community use the latter (desktop switching comes  
off the shelf on KDE, I think, and I've seen several GNU/Linux-to-Mac- 
switchers install a switchable-desktop extension first thing).

> Anyway, keep in mind that the buffer size of TeX is limited.  And that
> means the maximal line length which can be processed is limited as
> well.  Depending on the value of the limit this can make problems if
> you save your LaTeX files with long lines.

This limit should be fairly high. TeXShop uses (visual) soft wrapping  
and this app has tons of regular users. Apart from that, I guess it  
should be up to the mode to enforce limits to line lengths if the  
syntax / processors require that.

Again, if someone wants to work like that, fine: they will insert  
hard newlines and keep them in their files, and the line length will  
be 65 max or whatever, and they will probably keep their frames with  
a constant width.

But the alternative, and that's much more practical for users of  
variable-width frames, is to save the file in a format that's needed  
for the processor (i.e. certain hard-newlines for Python, and no or  
arbitrary newlines within paragraphs in LaTeX), but edit using the  
full width of the current frame. longlines already helps a lot, but  
has the practical issues others and I have pointed out.