[gentoo-user] ridiculously wide handbook pages

[Grant Edwards <grant.b.edwards@gmail.com>]

I've noticed recently that the Gentoo handbook web pages are
ridiculously wide. (It seems to me that they didn't used to be, but I
wouldn't swear to that). 

For example, look at this page:

  http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/base/embedded/handbook/?part=1&chap=2

The normal text paragraphs have lines that average over 160 characters
per line. The generally accepted guideline for line length in order to
maintain good readability is 40-80.  The above page's lines are 2-4
times as long as recommended for good readability, and they are in
fact so long that I can't make my browser wide enough to see an entire
line.

Line lengths that long make the pages hard to read even if you _can_
make your browser wide enough to show an entire line.

The regular handbook is a little better:

  http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml?full=1

That has lines that average about 140 characters.  That's still much
longer than what I'd consider good practice.

Do the extremely long lines in the handbook web pages bother anybody
else?

I can understand that things like example code blocks or sample
command input/output blocks might need to be wide enough to require
horizontal scrolling of a browser window, but normal text paragraphs
with 160 characters per line?

-- 
Grant Edwards               grant.b.edwards        Yow! Is this going to
                                  at               involve RAW human ecstasy?
                              gmail.com