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Date: Thu, 8 Jul 2004 18:26:28 -0400
From: Christopher Faylor <cgf-no-personal-reply-please AT cygwin DOT com>
To: cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Subject: Re: Wrapping long lines (Was Re: FAQ update suggestion for "I'm having basic problems with find. Why?")
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On Thu, Jul 08, 2004 at 03:56:49PM -0400, Igor Pechtchanski wrote:
>I've already explained why I don't think format=flowed is appropriate
>for this list (in particular, long command lines will also be wrapped
>if it ever were to be accepted).  In any case, the definitive opinion
>will be that of CGF, and if he says that he doesn't care one way or
>another, then my opinion will be just that -- an opinion, and not a
>list custom of any sort.

Well, since you asked, let me put it this way: I would never go out of
my way to send a note specifically telling someone to wrap their text.
My preference, however, would be to see some white space on the right
side of my mail reading window which is about 132 columns in width.  I,
personally, try to format my email to fit within 80 columns and when I
reply to a message I usually reformat it to the same width.  It is
my preference to see wrapping of text in messages to the cygwin lists.

I know all of the yadda yadda obvious stuff about "your preference" "my
preference" "modern mail readers", etc.  However, it has been a
convention to wrap email to somewhere around 80 columns (especially in
technical forums) for years and, personally, when I see email from
someone which just goes on forever without line breaks my first thought
is "probably clueless".

I don't know what Corinna's preferences are here but I wouldn't be
surprised if she agreed with the above sentiments.  Obviously some
people don't care at all about line wrapping but those same people
probably aren't bothered by email which is formatted to fit in 80
columns either.  It boils down to how much credibility you want to have
when you send a message.  When you send your unwrapped lines here you
are potentially not going to get as much attention as you might like.
So, if that doesn't bother you or if that is the effect you are striving
for then this is the maximum badness that will happen...  unless Corinna
disagrees.

Finally, you (Igor) are right that we are not going to change the
sourceware.org software to wrap in any other fashion than it does now.

cgf

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