If one has a need to see more than a few lines of code at a time it can be very helpful to use a GUI system and edit in an environment where one is not locked into the old 24x80 screen layout. On my systems I often will edit source files with multiple window views of the same file which can really take advantage of wide side by side dual monitors.

The ability to use larger screens and various selections of font sizes also makes the GUI working environment much better.

With these tools I take full advantage using a modest amount of vertical white space on source files. I have a tendency to use more of it in "C" or "VB" type programs and much less in assembly language programs. Out of old habit assembler files I write will have a comment delimiter in the first column of otherwise empty lines anyway.

One thing I can say that I detest is source code that is so densely packed as to also make it unredable. So I guess for each person there is a happy balance. And for those that get source files with too much vertical white space they are free to replace all instances of <cr><lf><cr><lf> with <cr><lf> and <lf><lf> with <lf>.

Michael Karas