Re: [RFC] Change coding style rule: 80 column "hard limit" for ChangeLogs

[Joel Brobecker <brobecker at adacore dot com>]

> AFAIK, that's because this is the default in Emacs's commands that
> manipulate ChangeLog entries.  Here:
> 
>   (define-derived-mode change-log-mode text-mode "Change Log"
>     "Major mode for editing change logs; like Indented Text mode.
>   Prevents numeric backups and sets `left-margin' to 8 and `fill-column' to 74.
>   New log entries are usually made with \\[add-change-log-entry] or \\[add-change-log-entry-other-window].
>   Each entry behaves as a paragraph, and the entries for one day as a page.
>   Runs `change-log-mode-hook'.
>   \n\\{change-log-mode-map}"
>     (setq left-margin 8
> 	  fill-column 74   <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
> 	  indent-tabs-mode t
> 	  tab-width 8
> 	  show-trailing-whitespace t)

We can transparently override it, I think, since our ChangeLog entries have:

> Local Variables:
> mode: change-log
> left-margin: 8
> fill-column: 74
> version-control: never
> coding: utf-8
> End:

(to be confirmed, since I am no longer an emacs user).

That being said, and fwiw only, I subscribe to the idea that 80
characters is a little bit on the long side. I think it's a good
idea to have one limit, and one limit only, but I'd prefer to
make it closer to 70 than 80 - maybe 74 could be a good compromise.
Ie, raise the soft-limit for the code to 74, leave the hard-limit
to 80, and thus keep ChangeLogs as is.

Other than the opinion above, it's not really all that important to me.
So I'm good with whatever reasonable limit the group decides. We just
need to make sure we document the decision, with reference to the
discussion.

-- 
Joel