Comment by Marco Alka on "Why use a maximum line length at all?"

For me these are the reasons I prefer to have a maximum line length and no wrapping at all:

1 dimension is a lot easier to handle, scrolling-wise
It is a lot faster to only read in one direction (ask any UI/UX designer about why they put form labels above or inside inputs (for example material design), never next to them)
All our tools are optimized for lines, not columns.
I use new-lines for better version control. Wrapping in the editor will prevent any chance of diffing sanely. Just think of solving merge conflicts with auto-wrap and long lines instead of a vertical arrangement urgghhhhh
I want control over my formatting. If I write a long line and it is auto-wrapped in my view, but in the file still one long line, I might have different experiences based on the editor or IDE I open the file with, so I (and others) will get confused
I can have very situation-specific code formatting.
Scrolling to the left will result in me not seing the other lines (in full), so I have a lot of scrolling back and forth to do, even though all code might fit on my screen if only it had been formatted correctly. Assuming I do not use an editor or IDE with your uber-cool auto-wrap feature, because it simply is not available for me. And no, I will not switch my tools just because someone does not want to do proper code formatting.

What would be an example of situation-specific code formatting?

(The question was intended to be more about automatic wrapping than 2D-scrolling, but there's certainly some useful points, thanks for answering!)

Mark

What would be an example of situation-specific code formatting?

For me, that's when it makes sense to deviate from the default formatting, based on code context. For example, when you declare a function with ten arguments, and you'd normally put a new-line for every argument to leave place for descriptions and a better overview (yes, I am pro-short-line), but because you declare twenty alternative functions in the same place, you leave all arguments on one line.

It might sound strange at first, but in Rust it is quite common to do something like that:

define_open!{A}
define_open!{A, B}
define_open!{A, B, C}
define_open!{A, B, C, D}
define_open!{A, B, C, D, E}
define_open!{A, B, C, D, E, F}
define_open!{A, B, C, D, E, F, G}
define_open!{A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H}
define_open!{A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I}
define_open!{A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J}
define_open!{A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K}
define_open!{A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L}
define_open!{A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M}
define_open!{A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N}
define_open!{A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O}
define_open!{A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P}
define_open!(A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q);
define_open!(A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R);

Good points EXCEPT that "inside input" GARBAGE since any "designer" who would do that isn't qualified to design a blasted thing thanks to "loss of focus"... it was GARBAGE on websites when people did it with JavaScript, and it's even BIGGER half-witted mentally enfeebled trash when people ABUSE placeholder to do it.

Since as always, placeholder is not a label. Hell, even the HTML 5 specification comes right out and tells you that -- and I quote:

The placeholder attribute should not be used as a replacement for a label. For a longer hint or other advisory text, place the text next to the control.

Placeholder exists to provide an EXAMPLE of what you would type in, and NOT a description of the field itself. THIS is a proper use of placeholder:

<label for="contact_zip">Zip Code:</label>
<input type="text" id="contact_zip" name="zip" placeholder="02345">

Which is why the artists under the DELUSION they are designers, and any other front end developer who places the label text inside the text entry area (input, select, textarea) isn't qualified to be designing a blasted thing as they clearly don't know the first damned thing about HTML, semantic markup, or UX/UI design.

It's part of what's known as "False simplicity", specifically "loss of context"...

baymard.com/blog/false-simplicity

... and there's not a damned thing wrong with putting it next to the input since then you have a nice neat column of labels down one side.

So on that ONE point, I greatly disagree.

Jason Knight thank you, that's a valid point and I completely agree with you.

To be honest, I don't like the material design a lot, but they have many nice little tricks for good UX. One of them is placing the label inside an input until you select it, which will then make the label shrink and change position to be above the input. I was thinking of something like that when I wrote my bullet point. I is an effect which can be done with pure CSS. Would you still disagree with this context? I updated my answer to reflect my thought ;)

Marco Alka If it is in an ACTUAL <label> tag, and is still displayed while the input is focused so you can tell what the input is actually for, then yes it's fine.

My only concern in that case would be if the code used to position it is natural CSS or scripting, and how/if it gracefully degrades when/if either of those are missing/blocked/unavailable -- but sure, you should be able to implement that.

:focus opens the door to a lot of possibilities.

Jason Knight Polymer Demo, however it heavily relies on scripts, which I would not do for my own projects. For a fallback, I'd write CSS2 and then modernize it with @supports (link), so that modern features are only applied on browsers which can handle them and a label is not stuck on an input or something like that.

Marco Alka Given it's CSR using dipshit made-up tags, there's no way in HELL I'd ever allow that onto ANY project I'd EVER create.

Joe forbid you just type in an <input> and <label> tag normally then target the semantic markup. NO, instead let's just crap all over HTML with invalid made up bullshit tags that have ZERO semantics and REQUIRES client-side JavaScript to even function. 100% Grade A farm fresh manure.

But that's the mouth-breathing asshat broken half-witted idiocy of "Polymer" in a nutshell. POSTER CHILD for everything wrong with modern development and how to tell users to go f*** themselves.

Bah, who are we kidding, that's EVERYTHING on the nube predating scam artists hoo-hah that is webcomponents.org -- it's like the worst of dynamic drive or W3Fools dialed up to eleven. Developers are dumber for this that type of crap even EXISTING!

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