From: John Moreno (phenix@interpath.com)
Date: Fri Apr 17 1998 - 14:26:05 CDT
Greg Berigan <gberigan@cse.unl.edu> wrote:
> phenix@interpath.com (John Moreno) wrote:
> >Charles Lindsey <chl@clw.cs.man.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> >> 5. Recommended line length
> >>
> >> DRUMS recommends keeping body lines within 78 characters. We recommend 79.
> >> Can someone explain why? I know of good reasons for not having lines of 80
> >> characters, but what is wrong with 79?
>
> > The one thing I can think of is that 78 allows one level of quoting
> > using the common '> ' prefix, without actually going over 80. Other
> > than that I don't see the difference - either seems fine.
>
> Netiquette dictates 72 characters which allows one level of quoting using
> tab. And three- and four-deep '>' quoting is still relatively common.
Well, since Pete just pointed out that it was to leave room for CRLF
(which I feel stupid for overlooking) the point is moot. We should also
use 78.
-- John Moreno